A Song for Someone Special
by halleyjo
Summary: No matter how hard you try to hide something dreadful, it only takes one person, one event, one memory to bring it out into the open.
1. Chapter 1: 83

A/N: Ohhhh my god...My first fan fic! Yay! Bow down! Not really. But please read and review. I would love it.

A/N 2: Contains some child abuse. Don't like, don't read. But if you do read, pleeeeeeeeeeease review!

A/N 3: My first fan fic!

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. I only own Caroline and Radar. If I did own the X-Men, Kurt and Logan would be my sex slaves and Storm and Rogue would be my bodyguards at school...undercover. Then they could kick the asses of the girls who pretend to be my friend and then make fun of me behind my back in front of the guy I like. Who's the weirdo, now? Huh, WHAT!

Um, yeah...Marvel owns all. Except for Caroline and Radar.

Chapter One: 83

**Germany, 1983**

Kurt Wagner stood trembling in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his demonic reflection and trying not to let the tears boiling in his eyes slip out from under his long, little boy eyelashes. His arm burned where the knife had slipped against his skin. A small bottle of hydrogen peroxide rested on the edge of the sink, with several used cotton balls bunched around it. Kurt stared at the small patches of blood on them, trying to picture the exact events that had just transpired in the downstairs kitchen.

Caroline. So angry, so hateful. At seventeen years of age, thirteen years older than Kurt. Rebellious and argumentative when it came to her mother, quiet and distant when it came to Kurt's mother. But when it came to Kurt, she was the sum of all his fears.

He remembered coming to this house with his mother. Raven Wagner was the widow of Eric Wagner, stepmother of Sigfried Wagner. Kurt knew the details of his birth. Raven had told him often, most of the times late at night when he couldn't sleep.

"You," she told him impatiently, "were born in a mansion in West Berlin. Most painful experience of my life, by the way. Eric had flown in his son from America to be there when his second child came into the world. The midwife pulled you out of me, and when she saw you, she said a prayer, threw you to me, and ran out of the room screaming. Eric and Sigfried came in, they were worried that something had gone wrong. Eric took one look at you and had a heart attack, while Sigfried ran out the door and went back to America. I've never heard from him again, but I think he went to his father's funeral. I took you away, though, before any other people saw you, and took you to my friend Rolanda's house, where we've been living ever since. Now shut up and go to sleep, I have to work tomorrow."

Caroline was Rolanda's daughter, but that was all they had in common. While Rolanda had accepted Kurt for his blue skin and yellow eyes, Caroline refused to acknowledge him as anything other than "the mutant." Caroline had been born in America, but when her father left, she and her mother moved back to Germany. She hadn't talked to Kurt, but he suspected that she didn't like her mother's homeland, which may have contributed to the ill feelings she felt towards most people.

Raven and Rolanda both worked at a local business company, leaving Kurt alone during the day while Caroline went to school. She was in her last year before graduation, after which she'd go to college. Kurt wasn't looking forward to the summer, when she would be home all day. But he decided to enjoy the time he had alone, where no one would hiss, "Freak," under their breath as they passed him. Although he was lonely, it was better than constantly worrying about Caroline popping out of the shadows.

After he heard his mother and Rolanda leave in their beat up car and Caroline slam the door on her way to the city bus stop, he'd get up from the small rug he slept on during the night, walk sleepily downstairs, and scour the kitchen fridge for something to eat. Kurt usually ate whatever was leftover from dinner the night before. When he finished eating, he went into the den and began to read the books on the shelves. Most of them were in German, but there was a leather bound Bible in English as well, which he read the most, enjoying the strange words even though he couldn't understand most of them. He lay on the couch for hours, reading and staring at the beautiful pictures of worlds he had never known, having never left the house as far as he could remember. At four o' clock, he put all of the books back in their original place and ran to the window to watch the school bus pass across his street. There was no one around for at least a mile, so it never stopped in that neighborhood, but he enjoyed watching the children through the windows. None of them looked like him, their skin was the same color as his mother's or Rolanda's or Caroline's, as was their hair. They were all smiling and laughing, throwing things and wrestling playfully. Kurt knew he'd never be able to do any of the things those kids could, but he still liked to look at them, even if it was for a brief period of time.

When the bus passed, it was only a few minutes before Caroline came home. Kurt took that time to erase any mark that he had been downstairs during the day, then ran upstairs as fast as possible and crawled underneath his mother's bed. Sometimes he would just barely make it, diving under at the exact moment when Caroline announced her arrival by slamming the front door and stomping up the stairs. She always stopped to look in Raven's room, and when she didn't see Kurt, she'd stomp down the hallway to her room. Upon hearing her settle down into the chair at her desk, he would breathe a sigh of relief and squirm his way out from under the bed as quietly as possible. After that, he'd sit by the foot of the bed where he slept at night and sing quietly to himself until Raven came home with Rolanda. When that happened, he knew it was safe. Caroline wouldn't do anything to him when they were there.

But on that one day, the bus had been late. Kurt sat by the window, waiting for it to pass, and hadn't really registered how much time had passed until he heard the door slam and Caroline stomp across the living room.

_Oh no, _he thought, freezing at the windowsill. _Please, please no._

Caroline suddenly appeared in the doorway, stopping short with her backpack slung lazily over her shoulder. Kurt noticed the fire blazing in her eyes, and realized it hadn't been a good day at school for her. So much the worse for him.

"What are you doing here?"

Kurt didn't know how to answer. This obviously wasn't leading anywhere good.

"I," he began, "I just-"

"I don't _care_ what you were _just_ doing, why are you doing it here? Think this is a freak hovel or something? Why aren't you in a cage, where you belong?"

Kurt felt the breath leave his chest in a solid _huff_. He knew most people would find his reactions to Caroline's banter cowardly, but he couldn't help it. _Somebody, anybody, please help me, please don't let her do anything to me. Please_.

His silent prayer was interrupted by the sound of Caroline's footsteps coming closer to him. The blood thumping in his ears sounded like the beating of drums, sacrificial drums, Hell's drums.

"Freak," she hissed, and let her fist fly.

The first punch knocked what little breath was in Kurt out like a balloon. He fell to the floor with a cry and covered his face with his arms as a torrent of hits and insults poured down on him. Caroline didn't care if she broke anything, she was pouring all of her anger and hate towards Kurt and her mother and Germany into every single word and shove. Kurt tried not to scream, if he did it would just make her angrier. He curled up into a ball and pressed his front side to the floor. How long had it been? Raven and Rolanda would come home soon. Soon. They had to come soon.

Suddenly it stopped. Caroline stood up, kicked him once in the back, grabbed her backpack and began rummaging through it. Kurt wondered vaguely what she was doing, peeking through his fingers. It couldn't be over yet. Was this the eye of the storm? He closed his eyes again, in an effort to silence the tears burning his behind his lids.

It was made clear in a minute though. She walked back to him, slowly, and Kurt felt fear grab his stomach into a knot.

"Look at me," she said, in a strangely calm voice. "_Now."_

Kurt did, reluctantly. There was no way this was leading anywhere good. His worst expectations had been confirmed.

There was a small, gleaming switchblade in her hand.

"Why didn't someone drown you when you were born? You'd be so much better off dead. _Everyone_ would be better off."

Kurt sprang up to his feet. Was she going to _kill_ him?

She growled. "Sit down."

"Please don't kill me."

"Sit - _down!" _With that last word, she swiped the knife at Kurt. He jumped out of the way, shrieking.

"_Please_ don't kill me!"

She swiped the knife at him again, and this time it caught on his forearm. He screamed in pain, and crumpled down in a heap to the floor.

_Raven Rolanda God oh God I don't wanna die come home please come home save me save me anyone_

He suddenly heard the car pull into the driveway.

_Thank you._

Caroline flipped the bloody blade back into its housing, yanked her backpack up from the ground, and ran upstairs. Kurt waited till he heard the door of her room close, then ran up to his mother's room. His mother and Rolanda were inside now, talking and laughing like normal. Kurt walked into Raven's bathroom and pulled some antiseptic from the medicine cabinet. His shirt was torn and bloody, he'd have to sew it up tomorrow.

A few minutes later, he had changed shirts and applied a clean bandage to his throbbing arm. Feeling a little better in flesh, but worse in spirit, he stared at the mirror hanging over the sink. He pressed his forehead to it, feeling big, fat tears fall from his yellow eyes. He repressed the urge to sob, and blotted his face on the towel.

Kurt's reflection was now of a demon child with red eyes and a tearstained face.

"Freak," he whispered to it, and let another tear slip down his blue skin.

A/N: Yeah, I screwed with Kurt's past. So sue me! Laughs

So didja like it? There's more chapters to come, plus a little contest! Please review in the meantime, I want to know what you think.

A/N 2: Yay! My first fan fic!


	2. Chapter 2: Something Bad

A/N: Awww...thanks to the people who reviewed, I luv you guys, you're so nice!

Okay, new chapter...this one will have another original charater named Gwen/Radar, please review and tell me what you think.

A/N 2: The second chapter of my first fan fic! Yay!

A/N 3: Ohhh my god I just looked at an X3 page and it might be called: X3: The Curse of the Mutant Whore.

Die, Brett Ratner, DIE!

Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own the X-Men. If I did, we'd live in a penthouse in New York. Xavier would pay rent, though.

Chapter Two: Something Bad

**New York City, Present Day**

Caroline Fahler stood on the dirty sidewalk, listening to the _hum_ of the passing trucks and taxis. They spewed ugly smoke into the air, creating a light coat of smog over the many buildings and stores. People passed in either direction of where she was standing, never stopping. The streets beat with an unheard throb of city life.

Caroline never tired of it all.

She had moved back to New York soon after she had saved up enough money. It had taken years, but it had been well worth the wait.

Of course, she mused, if her mother hadn't dragged her to Germany, she wouldn't have had to wait at all.

It was just like her mother to do something like that. Never stop to talk about it, never stop to ask, do whatever she wanted to do without ever worrying about how it might affect anyone else around her.

While thinking, the air around Caroline's head crackled with electricity. She suddenly patted her hair down to prevent the effects of static, feeling ridiculously vain. Angry thoughts, most of them about her mother, always seemed to come with voltaic changes in the air around her. She could never explain it.

Maybe, she thought, an image of the mutant child who had lived with them popping into her head, she didn't want to explain it.

Mutants. She didn't like the idea of them. Reports on the news told her that they could blend in with every day poeple, so you couldn't even recognize most of them. There had only been one she had met, and she hadn't seen him for years. Little freak was probably better off that way. Who knew what she would have done to him if she'd had to put up with him another day longer than he did?

_Crackle crack pop._ The air was charged up again.

Gwen grimaced as she spread the heated wax over the front of her leg. "Ow."

She grabbed the remote sitting on the couch next to her and changed the channel to a _Roseanne_ rerun, then placed it on the coffee table next to the spot where her leg was resting. Anything to take her mind off of the pain of having to wax her legs on a Saturday night.

A cotton strip lay on her lap. Gwen grabbed it and placed it on the quickly cooling wax, then waited for a moment.

"Gwen," she told herself, "don't scream. You know what Kurt said about it."

She grasped the edge of the strip, gritted her teeth and pulled.

Ororo "Storm" Munroe strolled up the empty halls of the boarding school. Saturday nights were usually like this, with the students sitting in one of the three television rooms watching a movie rented from a local Blockbuster. Scott had volunteered to take care of them all that day, which Storm was supremely grateful for. She loved the children like her own, but since Jean had died, she hadn't had a moment to herself to think.

_Clunk._

Storm jumped at the small noise that had startled her from the midst of her musings, then, upon listening closer, realized that it had come from the room on her far left. She walked over quickly to the lit doorway, and peeked in.

Sigfreda Gwen Wagner, daughter of Sigfried Wagner, and Kurt Wagner's niece, aka Radar, was rolling around on the floor in between the couch and the small coffee table, holding her leg and cursing through gritted teeth.

"Radar?"

Gwen looked up at the door, stopping midword through a particularly violent swear. "Hey, Storm."

"Are you okay?"

Gwen stood up, smoother her pajama bottoms, and sat back down on the couch. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me, I'm just doing my regular every-six-weeks ritual."

"Why don't you just shave?"

"Ennh," was the response. "You can keep walking, it's okay."

Storm pushed the door open wide, and Radar winced. The pair had never quite talked any more than the usual polite teacher-student conversations. Storm assumed she was just shy at first, but realized it probably wasn't true when she saw Gwen hug Artie in a jokey sort of way in the halls or playfully wrestle with Jubilee. She decided that it would be up to her to break through the seventeen-year-old girl's sometimes on, sometimes off shield.

"Mind if I sit?" she asked, pushing over Gwen's waxing kit supplies on the couch and settling down without an answer. "What are you watching?"

"_Roseanne. _AKA the best show of the nineties." Gwen grinned at the TV, her expression the total opposite of Roseanne's famous scowl.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, until Gwen cried out, "If this is about my essay, I chose to write about Taye Diggs because he's one of the pioneers for African-American Broadway actors and that is totally legit even if you think I'm being shallow-"

"This isn't about your essay. I just wanted to talk."

"Oh. 'Bout what?"

"I don't know. What do you want to talk about?"

"Errmmm...world politics?"

Storm looked up at the girl and saw a slight glint of a smile on her face.

"I haven't offended you in any way, have I?" she suddenly blurted out.

Radar looked surprised. "Whu?"

"It's just that...you seem kind of distant when you're around me."

Relief washed over Radar's face. "Well, that's cuz I'm a loudmouth."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, everyone calls me Lois around here."

"Lois?"

"That's the name of the mom on Malcolm in the Middle, she's a total loudmouth."

"What does that have to do with-"

"Well, I'm a telepath so I know a bunch of stuff I really shouldn't know and if I'm around you I might tell you that- ohh...wait, never mind. I'm not even s'posed to know. But don't worry, it's nothing big, it's just that...yeah, never mind."

Storm laughed.

"What's it like being a telepath?" she asked.

Radar thought for a moment. "Guess I never really thought about it. I been telepath-ing since eleven, so it's kind of like second nature to me. I can talk with my friends during class, and none of the teachers kn- aw, damn. I mean, never mind. I can read people's thoughts and stuff, so it's like I could know anything I want to know...you know?"

It took Storm a minute to figure that out.

Radar continued. "I can also read memories, but I don't like to. It can be real scary or sad. I've only read two people's memories, Dad's and Kurt's."

"Kurt's related to you because he's your uncle, right?"

"Technically half uncle." She grinned. "But 'Hello, Half-Uncle Kurt' takes, like, way too long to say."

"What...what about your mom?"

"Ooh, that's kind of hard to tell. My dad's a teacher in Boston at a high school - or rather, was - when he was, like, I don't know...mid twenties? Well, let's just say that I think I might be the result of a "study session," she made hooked peace signs to show quotes, "with one of his students."

"Ohh."

"You should see it when Grandma comes over. She hates talking about it, it's so funny. Well, yeah, anyways, I don't know who my mom is. She took off after I was born and moved to New York. I stayed in Beantown, though, with Dad. He's like, the most awesome guy, except he doesn't really...you know..._accept_ mutants. So I haven't told him that I'm a telepath." She hugged her knees to her chest, looking thoughtful.

"Maybe you should tell him. You never know."

"Maybe I'll get to ride a flying pig all over the country. You never know. No, just kidding. We kind of have this unspoken rule. 'Anything uncomfortable, we don't discuss." Hence, I don't even know my mom's name."

"That's so sad."

"Not really. I've never worried about it. Hey, have you seen Kurt today? I can't find him anywhere."

Kurt Wagner was, at the time, slumping his way down the hallway to the TV room where he knew Gwen would be. He hated to bring up schoolwork on a Saturday, but she hadn't turned in her last assignment and he needed to grade it. Not that he wanted to. What he wanted to do was go to sleep.

Upon seeing Gwen sitting on the couch, he felt relief. Upon seeing who she was sitting next to, he felt the previous feeling wash away by a wave of nerves. He was such a total brain dead idiot around Storm for some reason, it was embarrassing. But now he would have to quash those thoughts, he had a mission.

"Gwen," he said, and she jumped. He smiled, she knew exactly what he wanted.

"Oh, uh, hi, Kurt. Wanna sit?" She moved a small box and cloth to the table and patted the space between her and Storm. He felt his heart slam in his chest.

Gwen suddenly grinned, and Kurt had an awful feeling that she was reading his mind.

"Why so tired?" she asked.

Kurt, instead of running away, which was what he really wanted to do, took his place next to Gwen. "Some of the students wanted to do a Danger Room simulation this afternoon, and it took a nast turn. Where's your assignment that was due yesterday?" He asked.

Gwen turned pink. "See, it's like this. I was doing it last Wednesday, when-"

"I'll give you till Monday."

"Thank you!" She hugged him, then stood up, grabbing the box from the table. Storm followed suit.

"Where are you going?"

"Professor just 'pathed me - well, I guess he did Storm too, he wants us to go see him in his room." She pressed the remote into his hand. "Take the night off. There'll be plenty of papers to grade tomorrow morning." She walked over to the door with Storm, then broke into a mad sprint, rushing past the white-haired woman, and screamed, "Bye!" in the hallway.

Kurt settled down onto the couch, smiling at Storm's look of surprise. "Good luck with her," he said. Storm shook her head and left.

"What do you think he wants?" Radar asked outside of Xavier's office, finally slowing down enough so Storm could catch up.

"I don't know. It sounded important, didn't you think?"

"I didn't notice, I was trying to get out of the Kurt assignment."

"You really should focus more on German."

"I speak it!"

Storm ignored that last comment and opened the door. Xavier was sitting next to his desk. Rogue stood next to him, looking confused and excited.

"Hello, Professor."

"Yo, Pro," Radar giggled.

Xavier smiled slightly. "Hello Storm, Gwen. Thank you for coming so quickly."

"What's happening?"

"I've been trying to find a suitable mission for Rogue and Gwen to accompany you on, for their training as X-Men, as I told you about," he told the weather witch. "I believe I've located a mutant in Manhattan who's causing trouble in the streets. I need you to go find her and bring her here. This is routine, so I'd like you to bring these girls with you, as training."

Storm nodded. "Radar, go get changed. I'm going to prepare the _Blackbird_ for flight." Storm left through the open door. A few minutes later, Gwen and Rogue followed suit.

"Nice job on your leg," Rogue told her friend, grinning. Gwen blushed.

"Shaddup," she replied. "I got interrupted by Storm and Kurt. Can I copy your Deutsch homework?"

"NO."

"Can't say I didn't try."

They walked in silence for a moment, until Radar said: "Hey, Rogue?"

"Yeah?"

"This is a routine mission, right?"

"You just heard the Professor say so. Why?"

Radar looked contemplative. "I just got this awful feeling that something bad is going to happen."

A/N: Yeah, okay, this chapter was like, way lighter than the first. Caroline's in New York. Gwen's waxing her legs. Kurt's got a crush on Storm.

Next chapter: more Kurt-as-a-kid angst.

A/N 2: Pleeeease review!


	3. Chapter 3: Sunday Morning

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, you guys are the best.

A/N 2: I just got a pop-up offering a free plasma tv. Who are the losers who send me those ads?

A/N 3: Stupid Brett Ratner.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. If I did, I sure as heck wouldn't let Brett Ratner direct X3. I'd direct it myself. AND IT WOULD BE TONS BETTER THAN HIS VERSION.

Mutant whore my butt.

Chapter Three: Sunday Morning

**Germany, 1983**

Kurt lay on the floor of his mother's room, at the foot of her bed where he always slept. He couldn't remember ever sleeping on a real mattress, but it didn't matter to him, he rested better on the floor. The sound of Raven's breathing calmed Kurt down after an encounter with Caroline.

Caroline. He ran his disfigured fingers over the scar on his forearm where she had cut him with the switchblade. Had it only been two months ago? It felt like years. He hadn't told Raven about it. Kurt never told her about the beatings or verbal abuse. One of the things he'd learned earliest about his mother was that she did not like it when he cried.

"I don't want to hear about it," she told him.

Those seven words meant a lot to Kurt. He and Raven had never been close. Once he had seen a mother and her daughter walking outside of their house. They had been holding hands, and laughing. He had never done anything like that with his mother. They were as distant as the sun and the moon, only passing each other once in a millenia. Staring at the mother and child and contemplating this, he suddenly felt an odd, burning feeling in his chest, as though his heart had been dipped in acid, that he couldn't explain, even months later.

Kurt suddenly felt a wave of heat pass through his body. He stood up quietly, trying not to disturb Raven, and gently slid open the window over his head, feeling the sweet, early morning air of May wash over his face. There was a light pink tinge to the edge of the world outside, as the sun rose in the East. He glanced over at the alarm clock on his mother's nightstand, which was glaring 5:47 AM.

Another day gone, another day coming. One more day closer to summer, when Caroline would be home all the time. If she had her way, he would be forced to wear long sleeved shirts throughout the hottest months of the year to cover any bruises or cuts she would deliver to him. Kurt sighed, settling his upper chest on the window and resting his chin on his fists.

He'd never understood why it was always him who got hurt. Try as he might, he couldn't remember anything he had done to Caroline to make him the object of all her rage. Kurt understood she was probably homesick, but why - he clenched his fists into a sudden burst of frustration - did _he_ have to pay for it?

Angry thoughts raced quickly across his mind, never quite letting him grasp them. His breathing suddenly became labored with his intense emotions, and he felt light-headed. Anger gave way to panic as he struggled to maintain his head, and he stumbled into the bathroom as quietly as he could manage.

**Unfair**, he suddenly thought, so clearly it was almost as if someone had said it out loud. He found he could breath a little easier then. Kurt felt a little better and tip toed over to the sink, where he washed his face in cold water. He pressed his face against the towel, then took several deep breaths.

_Much better_, he told himself. He left the bathroom and went back to the small throw rug where he slept.

The clock now glared 6:03 AM. The red numbers seemed to shout across the room. Kurt knew that at seven o' clock, his mother would wake up. He'd have to pretend to be asleep when she rose if he didn't want to talk to her.

Or rather, if she didn't want to talk to him.

He sat down against the wall next to the bed and began toying with the frayed edge of the rug. In all of the stories he'd read, the mother had never treated their children like Raven treated him.

Sometimes, he felt as though Raven didn't even want him, hadn't ever wanted him. But whenever those feelings rose up inside of him, he told himself it wasn't true.

Caroline, though, seemed to build up those thoughts, feed them. She brought up his fears and nightmares, made him believe the worst of himself and the people around him.

Kurt let out a dry sob, then jumped upon hearing Raven stir in her sleep. He quickly lay down as she sleepily murmured, "H'lo?" then fell back asleep.

He was never going to get to sleep now, even though he felt like his eyelids were carrying lead weights. He hated this.

Sunday morning crept through the window in the form of bright orange sunlight. Raven and Rolanda always stayed home from work on Sundays, and for that he was truly grateful. He wouldn't be hurt at all today if they were there.

Sunday morning, he mused, was the day of rest in the Bible. It was his day of rest as well.

A/N: Okay, no Caroline or action in this chapter, just Kurt thinking about his mom. Next chapter: Will Caroline kidnap President Bush?

Of course not.

A/N 2: Review, please! I've been working so hard on this, writing at 1:15 in the morning...oh, crap, it's 1:15! I have stuff to do tomorrow! Night-night!


	4. Chapter 4: I Fought the Law

AN: Pleeease review!

Major cookies to Jubes (I read the lyrics to Concrete Angel and you're right, it is super sad) and Toxic-Beetle for being such faithful reviewers. Read their stuff, it's really good (Their stories, not the reviews).

A/N 2: I'm writing this while watching Roseanne. I have no social life. Gosh! (Napoleon Dynamite quote).

A/N 3: Any comments you have on Brett Ratner/how he's going to ruin X3, please feel free to leave them in the review column, but only if you actually review my story!

A/N 4: I just got a puppy who's a total idiot. He just ran past the computer with a glue stick in his mouth, and when I took it away from him, he looked at me like I was stupid and then went to the bathroom to drink from the toilet. He has issues.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Marvel owns them. I'm not getting paid for this. If I did own the X-Men, I'd take the _Blackbird_ to school every day.

Chapter Four: I Fought the Law

**New York, Present Day**

"...so this thingy makes it go faster?" Radar fiddled with a lever on the _Blackbird_ impatiently.

"Yes," Storm sighed. "Didn't Scott teach you how to work the control panel?"

"No, he stopped doing that after Jean died."

Storm winced at Radar's blunt words. Jean had been like a sister to her. Her death was like somebody had suddenly hacked off one of her limbs. She knew Radar missed Jean too, but she was frank about discussing her passing away.

"What's this do?" Radar asked, poised to slam her fist down on a button. Storm slapped her hand away.

"It controls the landing gear. You know what? Maybe you should sit in the passenger chair behind me."

Radar did so, begrudgingly. "Where's Rogue? Why is she taking so long?"

"She's changing in back."

"Took me less time to change. What's she doing, accessorizing? It's been like fifteen minu - Rogue, _finally._"

Rogue walked onto the flight deck, ignoring Radar, and leaned over the Storm's shoulder. "We almost ready?"

"Yeah, just gotta check the communication devices to make sure they're on -" Storm flicked a few switches on the controls - "and we're off."

Ten minutes later, they were flying over the school with Storm and Rogue piloting, while Radar waved goodbye to some of the students gathering at the windows of the mansion.

Once they were at full speed, Radar settled back into her chair. "We're going to Manhattan, right?" she asked Storm.

"Yes."

Radar thought for a moment. "Can we go see _Wicked_?"

Rogue turned around, momentarily forgetting about the controls. "Why _Wicked_?"

"Idina Menzel was in it."

"Well, she's not in it n - wait, this is stupid, why are we talking about it?"

"No CD player on the jet." Radar curled up in a Mae West - style pose in her chair. "Storm, what did Professer Chuckie tell you about the mutant we hauling back here?"

Storm almost let the corners of her mouth pull up, then reminded herself to be professional. "Radar, don't call him Chuckie, first of all. Second of all, we're not "hauling" her back here, we're hoping she'll decide to come with us. She's a electric generator."

"Let's name her 'Duracell'."

Storm chuckled. Radar really wasn't as shy as she had thought.

Kurt stood at the window, watching the majestic _Blackbird_ fly away in the early-autumn sky, and sighed. He assumed that Gwen now knew about his stupid crush on Ororo, and if they were going to be on that jet for two hours together, he could forget about keeping it secret. He loved Gwen more than anything else, as she was his only living relative, but she had a big mouth on her and she liked to use it.

He sighed again and settled down on the small couch. The television was blaring a _Seinfeld _rerun now. Kurt pulled the remote out from between the cushions and turned the channel to an old movie. He decided not to brood about how idiotic Storm was going to think he was when - not _if_ - Gwen told her about his more-than-friendly feelings towards her teacher. It wasn't going to make him feel any better.

Kurt looked out of the window, then back at the digital clock on the VCR. 7:46 PM. The rapidly setting sun could only mean that the days were getting shorter. The beginning of fall meant that it had been one year since Stryker had forced him to attack President, since Jean and Ororo had found him later in his church. When Jean died, he and Storm had become good friends, staying up late talking and eating ice cream together. Kurt couldn't exactly pinpoint when he had started to fall in love with Storm, though.

Love?

Kurt pushed that awkward, thrilling thought out of his head and lay down on the couch as best as he could, trying to fit his lean shape against big cushions. He was extremely tired from supervising Danger Room today. It was the last time, he promised himself, that he'd ever go into a small room with seven teenagers with a bloodthirst.

While thinking, Kurt was reminded of another promise he'd made to himself a long time ago. He had been fourteen - no, thirteen - when he had finally gotten away from Caroline and joined up with the circus. He had a family there, and friends, two things he'd never known existed. When Kurt realized that, he told himself he wouldn't ever let someone hurt him again like Caroline had.

So far, Kurt's promise hadn't been broken. He was extremely grateful for that.

With that final thought, he fell asleep on the couch, the remote resting on his chest.

Gwen stood on the sidewalk, gaping at the four people stretched out next to her, two men and two women, all unconcious. Electricity crackled in the air. Gwen cursed. Everything metal on the _Blackbird_ was going to be charged up, making little shocks a big reality. There was a crowd gathered around the the jet and the victims, all with shock and fear on their faces.

"Storm?" she called up the ramp. Her teacher appeared in the hangar with Rogue behind her. Both looked appaled at the casualties in front of them.

"I thought this was s'posed to be routine. I didn't think anyone would get hurt," Rogue whispered to Gwen when she joined her on the ground. Her Southern accent was playing up more than usual, a sure sign she was getting freaked out. Storm walked past them, cape gently whipping against Gwen's leg, and studied the four people lying on the sidewalk.

"The generator must have knocked out some passerbys with her electric current," Storm announced to her students, as if the gathering crowd wasn't there at all.

"Which one is she?" Gwen asked, joining her teacher at the side of an unconcious man and kneeling down to roughly wipe a trickle of blood from his forehead. She was afraid, but the hell if she was going to let it show on her first mission.

Rogue bit down on her own fear as well and began to paw through one knocked-out woman's purse. "Didn't the Professor say her name was Carol or something?" She held up a small wallet and began to search through it. "No good. Her name's Emily Griffin."

"Has anyone called the police?" Storm asked the growing mob. One man in front nodded, holding up a cell phone and looking terrified.

Gwen followed Rogue's suit, impressed with her friend's inginuity, and grabbed the other woman's clutch. "This woman's name is...uh...Caroline Fahler. Do you think-"

"Bring her on board," Storm said, staring at the street. The wails of squad cars were coming in close, and she was obviously getting worried. "_Now_."

Rogue glanced over at Gwen, fear spreading over her face once again, as she walked over to Caroline's limp body.

"Get her legs," Gwen said, clamping her hands over the woman's wrists. Rogue did, and they lifted her unconcious form off of the ground. "God, she's heavy. Damn, the cops are here." Her nonchalant attitude was an act, but she knew from experience that losing control would only make things worse.

Three squad cars gathered around the _Blackbird_, followed closely by an ambulance. Gwen waved cheerfully at the cops, and almost dropped Caroline.

"Sorry," she said to Rogue, managing to maintain her grip. "Storm, um, little help?"

Storm quickly ran over to the girls. "Go up the ramp," she whispered hurriedly. "I'll get the jet into flying gear. Hurry!"

She ran into the hangar as the paramedics rushed over to the comatose bodies. "They've been electricuted!" one of them screamed to the their partner. The cops made their way through the crowd slowly, guns cocked at Gwen and Rogue.

"Set her down and put your hands in the air," said the fed on the right.

Gwen winced. "She's the one who did this," she said, gesturing over at the paramedics and dropping Caroline. "Oops! Uh, you didn't see anything, alright?" She grabbed the woman by the wrists again and lifted her off of the ground. "We'll take care of her, and feed her, and treat her, and whatever else your supposed to do to electricuted people-"

"Set her down and put your hands in the air," the cop repeated, tensing his grip on his gun.

"Gwen, come on!" Rogue said through gritted teeth. The engines of the jet suddenly burst in life.

"Oh, crap," Gwen muttered. "Rogue, move."

They hurried up the ramp, slightly hampered by Caroline. The cops moved in closer as the girls passed over the threshold of the _Blackbird, _then began to run as Gwen slammed the button to shut the incline.

"Storm, move, move, _move_!" Rogue screamed to the flight deck.

"I'm going," Storm called back. "Here!"

Gwen felt her body go limp with relief upon feeling the jet lift off of the ground. "Thank you," she whispered to herself, feeling an odd sense of de ja vu.

A few minutes later, the _Blackbird_ was moving quickly through the sky. Gwen felt Caroline's pulse, and was relieved that it was firm and steady. She had probably just shocked herself and those passerbys a little bit, enough to knock them out, but no lasting damage was done. She told Rogue, who in turn went up to tell Storm.

Gwen propped Caroline up on one of the benches in the passenger's deck, and convinced she would be okay there for a while, followed her friend up the the flight deck.

"You okay?" she asked Rogue, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat, looking a little shaken up. Rogue nodded.

Gwen sat down in her chair, yawning a little. "We'll hand that Caroline woman over to Dr. Hank at the mansion, right, Storm?" she asked, trying to relax. She knew everyone would be okay down in Manhattan, but the awful sense of foreboding she'd had since they left had, instead of subsiding, grown. She didn't like it.

"Yes."

Gwen paused to think for a moment. "Anyone else think Caroline looks a little familiar?"

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so dang long. Little bi of writer's block, little bit of conflicted schedules, little bit of this being the only computer in my house and everyone was trying to read over my shoulder. Thanks.

A/N 2: Anybody get that de ja vu thingy? Cookies if you do.

Next chapter: Kurt as a kid. More angst. Okay, from now on, just assume that alternating chapters are Kid Kurt. Thank you.

A/N 3: School is starting in two days. Dang. Dang. I need sleep.


	5. Chapter 5: Goodbye Love

A/N: Oh, thank god. My mom is taking my sister to school and my dad is taking my brother to school, so yay, I'm alone and can finally write without someone over my shoulder. I need a computer for my room.

A/N 2: I start school tomorrow, so I might be a little slow with the upcoming chapters. I'll do the best I can, though.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, Marvel does. If I did, I'd be too busy watching them save the world and writing fan fics to go to school.

Chapter Five: Goodbye Love

**Germany, 1984**

Raven Wagner lay in her bed, tossing fitfully. Another damn night where she wouldn't get any sleep. She sighed and glared at the alarm clock by the side of her bed, which was flashing 12:00 AM continuosly.

Raven swore. The stupid thing was broken again. It had to be at least 2:00 in the morning. Well, she wasn't going to lie here pointlessly all night. She switched on the small lamp next to her bed and picked up her dog-eared copy of _Brigdet Jones' Diary_. She didn't let anyone at work know how much she loved this book, not wanting to be dubbed shallow, but it was her favorite to read at the late hours.

Tonight, though, she couldn't focus on the words in front of her. All she could think about was what had happened that afternoon.

It had been a horrible day at work. Her computer had shut down while she was in the middle of an important report, and she'd been forced to write all of her papers by hand. Raven unconciously flexed her wrist at that point, it still felt cramped. When she and Rolanda arrived home, she sank into the chair in the den, so happy to be home she couldn't describe it. That, of course, didn't help the fact that she was in a completely awful mood.

After sitting and watching the news for a while, she shut the television off and went upstairs to her room. She stopped on the way to listen at Caroline's door, and noted briefly that she heard muffled sobs. Poor girl was probably going through one of her crying jags of homesickness again. She was eighteen, and had been going to college for two months now, but it didn't seem to change her feelings about Germany.

Raven sighed and almost knocked on the door to see if she could do anything, but paused before actually doing so. Caroline would most likely want to be alone right now, as was usually the case. She repressed a groan and walked over to her room.

In there, she set her briefcase down on her small desk, and sank into her bed. She didn't know how long she lay there before she noticed Kurt Wagner's head - or, at the time, forehead and just barely his eyes - floating above the foot of her bed where he slept at night. She sat up, trying to see if his yellow-amber eyes were slightly red. Had he been crying?

He saw her looking at him and ducked down. Raven suppressed a smile and moved down to the end of her mattress, where, upon looking down, she saw Kurt curled up into a ball, head tucked between his knees and tail wrapped around his midsection protectively. She paused a moment to marvel at his flexibility, before realizing that her own son was scared of her. That made her feel sad and angry, not at Kurt, but at herself.

"Kurt?"

Kurt glanced up, momentarily untucking his head from his legs, before shrinking up into a ball again.Raven noted that his eyes did have a bloodshot tinge to them. He had been crying.

"Kurt." She poked the ball gently.

"Yesh?" He didn't uncurl at all, making his answer sound muffled. His slightly large, pointed teeth didn't help him at all.

"Have you been crying?"

"I'm sorry. I'll stop, I promise."

Raven heard a hint of a plea in his voice. It made her heart _twang-twang _in her chest. Had she really been that horrible to him, that he thought she'd hurt him? She knew she had never hugged him or held him when he cried, she had only told him to go away. She hated herself for doing that, but it was the only way she knew how to deal with Kurt. She'd never been shown any sign of affection in her household as a child, her parents were too uptight for that, so she had no idea how to do it. It made Raven ache to see him hurt when she did that, but it always happened too fast for her to prevent it. She was forcing her own childhood on her son, something she'd sworn she'd never do to her kids.

"Come sit with me?" She leaned up and patted the bed space next to her.

Kurt finally extracted himself from his blue ball and sat on his knees. He looked wary.

Raven beckoned to him. "Come on." (A/N: I'm writing this while listening to Smells like Teen Spirit. Kurt Cobain is a genius who died too young).

He stood up, still looking nervous. "Really?"

"Yes."

He paused for a moment, thinking it over, before finally climbing up the mattress to the spot next to Raven, making sure not to touch her.

Raven was sobbing on the inside, her own son thought she didn't want to touch him, but on the outside she put on a smile.

"Hello, Kurt."

"'lo, Raven," he mumbled incoherently, folding his hands in his lap and looking forlorn. Raven touched a black curl on his head, noticing that it was the same color's as her late husband's had been, before it turned grey. Kurt glanced up at her, looking confused, then trained his focus very carefully on the bedspread he was sitting on. He brushed his big finger across the material, following the pattern. Raven suddenly acknowledged a large bandage on the back of his hand.

"What happened?" she said, grabbing his hand. He winced and pulled it back.

"It - I, um, I - burned myself on the stove today." Tears filled his eyes again, and his eyelashes fluttered helplessy in his effort to prevent them from falling.

Raven gently pulled his hand back towards herself, and peeled off the bandage. Underneath it lay a burn, shiny and bright red against his dark skin. There were big ridges in it, and she realized that he must have hurt himself on one of the burners in the kitchen. She bet if she lined up his hand and the forge of the stove they'd line up perfectly.

She shuddered; it must be painful for Kurt; and placed the bandage back on.

"You did a nice job cleaning it up and dressing it," she told him.

"T'ank you."

The tears in his eyes finally spilled over, and he jumped in horror.

"Sorry," he sobbed, and began to push himself off the foot of the bed to go sit in his corner. Raven managed to catch him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him back into place. He rubbed his sleeves vigorously against his eyes, and inhaled through in his nose to stop the sobs. "I'm sorry. I'll stop crying."

"It's okay," she said, running her fingers through his hair. He glanced up at her, still looking confused, as well as miserable.

"Did I do something?" he asked, hugging his knees to his chest.

Raven shook her head, feeling a little sick. "No. I just had a bad day at work. Have you ever had to write three business reports by hand?"

Kurt smiled waterily and shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

She began to tell him about her day, and soon wondered why she hadn't ever talked to him before. He was a good listener.

Half an hour later, Kurt was lying down comfortably on the bed in front of Raven, falling asleep. She noticed that the tip of his thumb was in his mouth, and he was sucking it gently. He had just turned six, how long had he been doing that for? Her stomach flipped over, he was her son, and she knew nothing about him.

In a small act of retribution, she gently wriggled her arms underneath his tiny body and lifted him onto her lap. He glanced up at her sleepily, then snuggled against her body, wrapping his thin arms around her neck and letting his head rest on her shoulder. It took Raven a moment to realize that he was hugging her.

It felt like someone had ripped her heart from her chest and thrown it against the wall. There was this tiny, helpless creature in her arms, who depended on her even more because of what he looked like, and she didn't know how to take care of him at all.

Raven decided to ignore all of that for a few minutes. She could deal with her motherly incompotence later. Right now, she was going to spend some time with her son.

"Love you, Kurt," she murmured so softly into his hair, she wasn't even sure if she said it out loud.

Her suspicions were proven wrong, though.

"Love you too, Raven," he muttered quietly, before falling totally asleep.

Raven felt tears boiling in her eyes as she set him down gently on her bed and walked downstairs to help Rolanda make dinner.

Now she lay in her bed with the lamp casting a yellow glow across the room. She could hear Kurt breathing at the foot of her bed, totally dead to the world. She moved the blankets surrounding her legs to get a good look at him.

He lay on his small rug, sucking his thumb in his sleep and smiling slightly. He didn't need her to be happy. She sighed and tucked his tiny blanket around his small frame.

Finished, Raven settled her back against her headboard, wincing at the cold November air that seemed to creep into the house unnoticed until nighttime. She pulled the blanket up around her hips and wriggled her toes, trying to warm them up.

"Damn it," she said out loud. She knew what she needed to do. She'd been stupid to marry Eric when she was so young, stupid to bring a child into a world that would surely hate him, stupid to think she was actually capable of taking care of him, stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Stupid!" she yelled suddenly, to give vent to her feelings, then jumped, hoping she hadn't woken Rolanda or Caroline or Kurt up.

Raven pulled the blankets off of her legs angrily, getting caught in them once. She stomped over to her closet, empty except for a few good dresses and a suitcase, which she grabbed. The dresses she pulled off of the hangers and stuffed in her pack, along with her shirts and a few pairs of pants from her dresser.

When all of her belongings were shoved in her suitcase, she tossed _Bridget Jones' Diary_ onto the large pile of clothes and shut the lid, save for a thick jacket, which she donned grumpily.

Now came the hardest part. She set the heavy case on her bed and kneeled down to the small rug where Kurt slept.

"Kurt," she whispered quietly, and kissed his small, pointed ear. "I love you." She patted his cheek once, trying to memorize exactly how it fit into the palm of her hand, its fuzziness, its warmth, before standing up to turn off the light and grab the suitcase.

She stood in the doorway for a moment and looked back at her son one last time, then walked down the stairs as quietly as possible. In the kitchen, she turned the light on and scribbled a note to Rolanda on a scrap of paper:

_Dear Rolanda,_

_Have to leave. Can't say why, takes too long to explain. Thanks for letting me live with you. Please make sure Kurt doesn't get hurt. Tell Caroline she'll find her place in Germany someday. You've been my best friend. I owe you so much. _

_Thanks again, Raven Wagner_

Raven slammed the pen down next to the paper and switched off the light, feeling her way over to the door with one hand. She felt light headed and dizzy with emotion. This was the last time she'd ever leave again.

Outside, on the street, she glanced back at the house gratefully, then focused on her window under which she knew Kurt would be sleeping.

"Goodbye," she said out loud, and walked down the road. About a mile away, she knew, there would be the station where Caroline waited to get to school every morning. She'd stay there all night, and catch the earliest bus to get to Berlin. Raven didn't know what she would do once she got there, but she'd figure that out later. Right now, she had to get away to save Kurt.

Kurt. Her son. If only she had had more time with him.

Raven glanced up the road to where the house was now hidden by trees, where Kurt was, and burst into tears.

A/N: This is my fave chapter so far. I didn't want Raven to be the bad guy, so I wrote this one from her point of view. What do you think? Review!

This was so depressing to write. Or maybe I just have PMS? Ugh, anyways. I'm going to have to go read some parodies right now to get my mind off of it.

A/N 2: School. Ennh.


	6. Chapter 6: Smells like Teen Spirit

A/N: Ah, school. Nothing like a day full of school to make you miss your family.

Nothing like five minutes with your family to make you miss school.

No, just kidding. School's so hard, though! Oy.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I would borrow the mansion to have a sleepover with my friends.

Chapter Six: Smells like Teen Spirit

**New York, Present Day**

"...Maureen Johnson, back from her spectacular one-night engagement at the eleventh street lot, will sing native american tribal chants backwards through her vocoder, while accompanying herself on the electric cello which she has never studied! Your new boyfriend doesn't know about us? There's nothing to know. Don't you think that we should discuss- It was three months ago! He doesn't act like he's with you. We're taking it slow 1," Gwen sang loudly, grinning into the fridge she was standing next to. She strummed her fingers along the cold top shelf, searching for a Diet Coke. She was alone, which was how she preferred to be when she felt like singing. She knew that she wasn't shy, but she had no idea whether or not she was a good performer, and didn't feel like finding out the hard way.

It was getting late, around ten-ish, and her friends were in TV room where everyone had been watching the movie that night. Everyone had left after the end of it, except for Jubilee, Kitty, and Tracy. Gwen and Rogue had joined up with them after showering and getting Caroline into Dr. Hank's office. She was still out cold, but she would be okay. Now, they would all watch either _Se7en_ or _Down with Love_ together, depending on who had picked the film out. Gwen was praying for Love Actually, if she had to sit through one more of Jubilee's gory thriller movies she would puke. She figured Rogue didn't need to be upset anymore, that encounter with the police had really freaked her out.

No Diet Coke. Gwen sighed. There was only two bottles of soda left, both Fresca, which she hated. She stood up and shut the refrigerator door. Just as well, some green tea would be better for her anyways.

A few minutes later, she held a scalding hot mug of tea in her hands, breathing in sharply as the cup burned her hands. The ice cream container under her arm was also extremely uncomfortable. She jogged back to the room as quickly as she could without spilling the tea.

"What are we watching?" she asked Jubilee, setting her mug down on the coffee table.

"_Down with Love_," Jubilee said, glaring at the screen. Gwen let out a sigh of relief.

"Good. I wasn't going to watch _Se7en_ again," she said, settling down between Kitty and Rogue on the floor. Siryn lay on the couch, sleeping with her mouth slightly open. "You okay?" she muttered under her breath to Marie. She nodded.

"What'd Hank say about that woman?"

"She'll be fine. She looks familiar, though, don't you think?"

"Not really."

"I think Kurt knew someone named Caroline in Germany when he was a kid. Not that I'm supposed to know about it."

She opened her ice cream container and dug her spoon in, looking thoughtful.

"Think she looks like Jodie Foster?" Gwen asked Rogue, suddenly. "Same nose. That's what I was thinking of."

Kitty rolled her eyes. "You are, like, so shallow sometimes, Gwen."

"So?" Gwen knew her friend was teasing her.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. This was Kitty's favorite movie. Jubilee, however, was bored out of her mind. Radar could sense it, and decided to make coversation.

"D'you think Kurt likes Storm?" she blurted out, then mentally slapped her forehead. What a dumb topic, Kurt would kill her if Kitty knew. She loved gossip, and loved spreading it even more.

As predicted, all of her friends leaned in expectedly, forgetting the movie completely.

"Why?" Jubilee asked, her black ponytail swinging excitedly.

"Well," Gwen said, trying to think of a way to occupy everyone while still getting off scot-free with Kurt. "I actually read his mind a few months ago, and he was, like, um, totally obsessing. So I've been keeping my mouth shut about it in front of Storm for a while. Plus, we were all in the other TV room and I did it again. Same thing."

Kitty clapped her hands happily. "I knew it wasn't just me! I knew someone else had to notice it!"

Gwen nodded, spooning some slightly melted Phish Food into her mouth. "You shink Chorm feelsh sa shame?" she asked, wincing as the ice cream froze the roof of her mouth.

"What?"

Gwen swallowed, then gasped. "Do you think Storm feels the same way?"

Rogue grinned. "They're best friends. Like"- she crossed her two fingers for all to see- "that close."

Gwen thought that over for a moment. "It'd be good for Kurt to get a girlfriend. That Amanda really screwed him up."

"Who?" Jubilee asked. Gwen waved her hand impatietnly.

"Long story. Weird turn of events." She grinned nastily. "Bit of a beyotch, in my opinion 3."

She punched her spoon into her ice cream at that last statement.

Kitty giggled, she lived for this. "Amanda. Huh. Anyone else?"

Gwen shook her head. "No...not really."

"What do you mean, not really?" Rogue asked.

Radar shifted guiltily. "Umm...actually, Kurt doesn't know that I've read his memories. So I'm not even supposed to know about it."

"'bout what?" Jubilee asked slyly. Gwen grinned.

"I'm not that big a loudmouth, Jubes."

"Whatever you say, Lois," she replied. Gwen smacked her with a pillow playfully, then turned serious.

"It wasn't a girfriend, trust me. Far from it. It actually had something to do with the Caroline I was talking about earlier. It wasn't good."

"How bad was it?" Kitty asked, looking a little perturbed.

"So bad, if I were him, I'd have either gone on a killing spree or spend my life whimpering in a corner." Gwen kneeled on the floor with her arms over her head, demonstrating, then sat up and glared at her friends. "But that is all I'm telling you. Never mention it to anyone. Especially Kurt."

"Why not?"

"Because he'd kill me."

"He won't kill you."

Gwen snorted. "Yeah, but he might fail me in German. It is so unfair I have to take that, anyways, I spoke it all the time with my dad. I could fully have a study hall then, or whatever." She swished a boiling mouthful of tea in her cheeks, and swallowed noisily. "Leute sind dumm 2." She smacked her tongue against the roof of her slightly burnt mouth.

"Killing spree?" Jubilee asked.

"Exaggeration on my part," Gwen said. "Look, just don't bring it up ever again, all righty?"

They nodded, with puzzled expressions on their faces. Gwen laughed.

"Now, what were we talking about?"

Storm grinned as she watched Kurt twitch in his sleep on the couch. He always shut his eyelids so tightly, and it made her wonder what he was dreaming about.

She had gone back to the room he had been in last after showering and changing into her pajamas, some blue cotton pants and a matching shirt Kurt had given her for her twenty fifth birthday. After they went on one of these missions, they always spent a while talking together, whether or not it was about the mission itself. It was an unspoken rule they had in their close friendship. Storm loved being with him, he always told the funniest stories, and was an incredibly good faux-psychiatrist.

She could use a good story now.

"Wake up," she whispered in his ear. He frowned in his sleep, and Storm moved quickly as he gently batted the place where her lips had tickled his skin. She giggled, and blew on his neck, provoking the same response from him as before.

"Earth to Kurt," she said, hitting him with a couch cushion. He didn't move.

"Kurrrrt," she muttered playfully against the spot where his ear met his cheek. Storm noticed his mouth twitching up in an unmistakable smile, with his eyes still closed. Then, in one swift movement, he sat up, grabbed the pillow from her arms, and smacked her over the head with it.

"Gotcha," he exclaimed, and hit her side with the cushion playfully. She pulled it away gently, and he sat up sleepily, shoulders hunched over. "How'd the mission go?"

"Pretty good. The police got involved, but we got away and the woman's going to be fine."

"That's good. Will she be staying here?"

"We don't know yet. She's unconcious. Hank's taking care of her right now, and we'll talk to her when she wakes up."

"Should-" Kurt paused, looking a bit nervous, then tried again. "Should I stay in my room then?"

Storm winced. She hated talking about Kurt's looks, knowing he was sensitive about it. "We'll see."

She decided to change the subject as soon as possible.

"I haven't seen you all day," she told him. He sighed.

"It was Saturday," he moaned. "Gwen was home, it was raining too much for her to bike into town with her friends. I spent the entire day arguing with her."

Storm snorted, settling comfortably next to him. "About what?"

"Everything. She kept asking me to say that Taye Diggs could beat up Errol Flynn for three hours, just to hear me say it, first of all."

"Did you?"

"No! Of course not! Then she said she could win if we had a fencing match, which I'm regretting teaching her to do at all, so we spent an hour trying to find some sticks we could use to fence with - just to prove she wouldn't win. When I did find them, she'd been copying that picture they drew of me and ran in the newspapers when I attacked the President with the Xerox machine and pasting multiple copies all over the school with Kitty. They then ran into the Girls' dorm screaming, and wouldn't come out for fifteen minutes because they were laughing too hard. Then they got mad because I had taken down all the pictures, Gwen threw a book at me and called me a necrophiliac 3, then admitted she had no idea what that word actually means after I had caught her. She and Bobby got into a huge argument later, and asked me if they could do a Danger Room simulation to settle it. Which-" he groaned- "I'm not entirely sure if they actually did do."

"Whoa."

"That's what I said. I am never watching the teens by myself on a rainy day again."

"We won't make you."

"Thanks." Kurt cradled his head in his hands.

"Kurt?"

"Yes, Ororo?"

"You realize that you were being just as immature as Gwen today with the arguing, right?"

Kurt thought this over, then grabbed the pillow and hit Storm over the head again. "You're the immature one," he teased. She laughed, pushing herself away from his swinging arms. It was moments like these that she so enjoyed.

It was ruined, however, by a loud, terrified scream in the hallway.

A/N: Dun dun dun! Okay, love it, hate it? Review and let me know!

Sorry this chapter took so gotdang long. I was on a school trip for a few days.

1: From the musical Rent, the particular song is La Vie Boheme.

2: German for "People are dumb." Yeah, I made Gwen a little random.

3: This is the only self insertion in this story. On the trip, I was with this friend who's like madly in love with Chopin, and she never shuts up about him. So some of my guy friends made up this song, "Who's a necrophiliac? _Clap, clap, clap clap clap. _Jen's a necrophiliac!" Hahaha. I nearly died laughing.


	7. Chapter 7: Hell is for Children

A/N: Aww, you reiviewer guys are the bestest:

Jujube111: Thank you so much! Don't be confused, be happy! Okay, Maureen is a character from the musical Rent, if you care.

Toxic-Beetle: Thanks to you too! Wicked is a really good play, if you care. Emma is my middle name.

A/N 2: I have PMS and a chocolate bar that's telling me to eat it, so expect some good angst. Hormones. I need a brownie! Gimme a brownie! (Starts crying, disrupting all the people in her study hall). Sniffle.

Disclaimer: I, of course, do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd take either Bobby or Pyro to the prom (they'd both look really good in a tux).

Chapter Seven: Hell is for Children

**Germany, 1984**

Kurt quietly slid the screen door open, and shivered as a burst of December air blew against him, seeping in through every hole in his jacket and pants, biting hard at his bare face and fingers. He wouldn't be able to stay outside for long, it was too cold, but it was his last chance to get out of the house for another day.

Ever since Raven had left, he'd been feeling a sort of emptiness inside of himself. They'd never been close, he knew that, but the half hour he'd had with her that last day had made him forget all about it. The only feeling he had left now was a vast loneliness.

Caroline had hit him last week, and he hadn't even reacted. No wincing. No screaming. No pleading. No tears. Nothing. He could have cared less if she'd taken a drill bit to his head. Because, he thought sadly, wrapping his jacket even tighter around his skinny arms, Raven had left because he cried too much, because he was too much to handle. Right?

Now he'd never know.

This thought had resulted in Kurt's present vacuous lifestyle. What was the point, he asked himself as he pulled a book off of the shelf one day an hour after Caroline had left, of anything? Nothing ever stayed. And he'd pushed the book back into place, hating it for the first time in his life.

Kurt leaned against the side of the house and sank down into the frozen ground. He tucked his knees underneath his shirt and hugged them to his chest, grateful for any warmth. He'd been going outside every night since the middle of December, after he had realized Raven had left. It had been the first time he'd gone outside as long as he could recall.

The bright moon smiling in the sky was completely foreign to him, as was the dry crunchy fall grass and leaves on the ground. The air was sharp and cold and fresh, harder feeling than he'd thought it would be. The trees further out back were tall, and the bark felt rough and jagged against his fingers. Kurt had almost panicked, this was so much space, so different from the little house he lived in, that he'd sprinted back in as fast as possible, waking up Caroline when he slammed the door and provoking an angry attack; she hated being aroused from sleep in the middle of the night, and she proved it enthusiastically with her fists. She'd smacked him full in the eye, and made it swell almost shut. Then she'd _laughed, _because she knew Raven couldn't do anything about it. Kurt had done nothing but press his hand against his face and walk back to his room.

But he'd still come out again, this time staying for a bit longer. Now he was lying down next to the house for hours at a time, never falling asleep, but resting from his little rug. It was risky, but he didn't care what happened anymore.

Kurt snuggled against the doorstep, curling into a ball and twisting his tail around his waist unhappily. He felt his eyelids sink down of their own accord, and snapped them open before he could fall asleep. There'd be trouble if Caroline or Rolanda found him here in the morning. Rolanda was nice enough, but she mostly ignored him and Kurt preferred it that way. He wasn't in any mood for contact right now or ever.

His lids sank down again, and this time he left them closed.

_what is this place? too dark too big too quiet no one is here no one is here. alone alone alone someone help me. a book comes out of nowhere and smacks him in the eye and laughs and sits in front of him and opens itself. he reaches out for it to read it why did it hurt him if he can read it he will find out. but when he touches it it snaps over his fingers and jumps away. he tries again and the same thing happens come back i wanna find out! tell tell tell its too empty in this place he needs to feel someones hand or heartbeat something to grab onto anything will do. suddenly a figure comes out from the darkness shes holding a small light and he can make out her face. ravens in front of him, smiling and holding out her hand she does want him she does she does and a small ray of sun comes through out of nothing as he reaches to close around her warm fingers he wont be cold anymore. but when he touches her palm she makes a fist and slams it into his stomach and when he looks up shes caroline and she laughs and laughs and laughs raven caroline raven caroline raven-_

"CAROLINE!"

Kurt jumped awake at the sound of the angry shout. He spent a minute trying to decipher dream from reality and stood up, rubbing his eyes. How long had he been asleep? It was still nighttime, so it probably hadn't been too long.

He heard another shout from inside, and immediately flattened himself against the wall of the house. Rolanda was screaming at Caroline, why? It was revealed a moment later when voices came out from the kitchen. Kurt felt a shiver travel up his spine, there was no possible way this could mean anything good.

The window a few feet away was lit up suddenly, and throwing common sense away, Kurt walked over as quietly as possible and peeked in.

Caroline was sitting at the table, wearing nothing but a night shirt and her underwear. Rolanda stood above her, alternating screaming in German and some other language he couldn't understand, but he thought sounded like English. And next to her daughter was a man Kurt had never seen before. He wasn't wearing much more than Caroline, just some boxers and a T-shirt. He looked nervous, and was trying to play it off, but wasn't succeeding. Caroline herself looked angry, as she yelled in English. Kurt had no idea what was going on.

"...and if you think," Rolanda said, switching to German again, "that I wouldn't find out, you're wrong! How could you? After all I've done for you-"

"You didn't do anything for me!" Caroline jumped up and pushed her face near her mother's. "I'm an adult, Mother, I can do what I want. I'm moving back to America when I finish school, and Emmett and I are gonna get married, and you can't stop us!" She threw her fist in the air to punctuate that last word. Kurt frowned, get married?

"Get married? For God's sakes, you're eighteen! You can't make this decision and possibly think it's a good one. You're too young to get married, let alone-" she faltered suddenly, and waved her hand helplessly at Emmett, who turned red and stood up next to Caroline, slipping his arm around her waist. She let it rest there, and glared smugly at her mother.

"We love each other, Mother. Unlike you and Dad. And we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, no matter what you think!" She inhaled in sharply, breathless from the argument.

Rolanda's face burned a bright shade of red, almost magenta. She pressed her lips together, looking furious, then, without warning, fell down and didn't move.

Caroline's anger faded away, and she knelt down. "Mother?"

She didn't move.

"Mother?"

Nothing.

"Mother!"

A/N: Hahahahaha. Another cliff hanger, any nasty names you'd like to call me, please leave in your review. Oh yeah, please review.

Next chapter: Find out who was screaming and why. Yay!

Gotta go, byebye.


	8. Chapter 8: You Okay Honey?

A/N: Whazzup, my lovelies? Okay, sorry about last chapter, weird ending…you'll find out what happened next chapter. Oh, yeah, in case you don't know, Caroline was, uh….getting her freak on, got it? Good, let's move on.

Jujube111: Stupid head? Hahahahaha. You are an odd person, but that's okay, so am I.

Toxic: Thanks tons, as usual. You're so nice! That fully made me happy. Happy Birthday!

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, as usual. If I did, Kurt and Logan would have been topless WAY more than they were in the movie. (Yay topless movie Kurt)!

Chapter Eight: You Okay Honey?

New York, Present Day

Caroline sat up sleepily, unaware of how she'd made it from the New York sidewalk to this bed. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at the sight of the blinding whiteness. Where was she?

Her last conscious thought had been about her mother, or was it about Emmett? She couldn't remember, only a lot of screaming and crackling air.

There was always electricity around and inside of her.

She opened her eyes again, this time with more caution, and noted that she was in a lab of some sort. Everything was so…white.

Caroline paused to think about this. Was she in the asylum? Had she finally gone around the bend?

This was answered, however, by a flash of blue in the corner of her eye. She whipped around, and saw, to her horror, a blue _beast _man in a white doctor's coat standing in front of an x-ray machine.

"What the hell?" she yelled, and pulled the blankets off from around her feet and stood up. The beast turned around, yellow eyes gleaming behind glasses, and smiled.

"You're awake. Good."

Caroline screamed, this was too much - waking up in some strange place, with a beast doctor taking care of her - and ran to the nearest door, almost pulling the doorknob from its hole in her effort to leave.

The room she had entered was also white, with a metal floor and some weird suits in glass cases. The door on the far end looked almost like an elevator, and she pressed the button next to it eagerly, hoping for some escape.

The next floor up had an entirely different atmosphere, almost like a museum. It was deadly quiet, with wood paneling and clean, shiny floors. There were open rooms all around, and upon looking at them, Caroline discovered an array of classrooms. She swore. This was getting weirder and weirder.

She turned a few corners, searching for an exit, and instead found more rooms, these with games and a television in them. Was this...a school?

Caroline stood out in the hallway for a few minutes, trying to keep her head. If she could keep from having a nervous breakdown, she'd be okay.

"Okay," she breathed out loud, settling against the wall and closing her eyes, hoping she wouldn't throw up. At the sound of footsteps, however she raised her head and took a defensive stance as someone came out from one of the rooms a few feet in front of her.

It was a girl, probably in her late teens, in pajamas with chin length black hair, standing in the doorway, holding an empty mug. She hadn't turned around yet, as she was talking to someone in the room behind her.

"...the little specks on the cooler ranch Doritos are NOT BLUE, Jubilee 1!" she yelled, waving her mugly in the air hotly. "YOU'RE just COLOR-BLIND!" She whipped around, shaking her head, and upon seeing Caroline, froze midstep.

"Um," she said, looking embarrassed. "Hi?"

Caroline screamed again. The girl winced.

"Aw, crap, here we go," she muttered. Caroline heard people running towards them.

"Gwen?" said an Asian girl, appearing in the door behind Black Hair. Gwen turned around as three more girls joined Asian Girl, one with brown hair, one with white stripes at the face, and a redhead.

"Is that the Jodie Foster lady?" Brown Hair asked. Gwen nodded, looked over Caroline's shoulder, her eyes growing big.

"What's wrong?" said a woman's voice behind Caroline. She turned around.

Behind her was a black woman with white hair, who looked worried. And next to her was…no.

It was the mutant child that had lived with her. He was grown up, but there was no mistaking his blue skin and tail. He was taller now, about six feet, and his face was covered in scars, some sort of decoration.

This time, Caroline shrieked in surprise. The mutant, upon seeing her, yelled in reply and back into the room he'd come from. The white haired woman glanced back at him, made a movement to go towards him, but thought better of it and approached Caroline.

"I didn't do anything," Gwen said loudly. "I just stood here. You can't pin this on me!" She stomped her foot in defense.

The white haired woman sighed. "You're not in trouble," she told the girl, who looked relieved. "Did you come from Hank's office?" she asked Caroline.

Caroline was too startled to speak. She simply stood there, feeling incredibly stupid. Gwen laughed.

"Typical Kurt reaction. Score one more for him!"

The white haired woman looked annoyed. "Gwen, Jubilee, Kitty, Rogue, Tracy, go back to what you were doing and let me handle this."

The girls behind Gwen went back into their room, giggling. Gwen made a move to go into the opposite room.

"Gwen, what are you doing?"

"Just seeing my only regional family member," the girl replied, pretending to be hurt. "I just want to talk to my family member. Is that a crime? Because if it is"-

"Fine, fine."

Gwen grinned. "Thanks, Storm!"

Kurt was sitting on the couch, staring off into space. Gwen sat next to him, and when he didn't react, shook her hand in his face. After a while of that, she got annoyed and smacked his cheek. He jumped.

"Slow reaction."

"Shut up. What are you doing in here anyway?"

"Came to talk to you."

"About what?"

"You know what. Why do you run away?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I think you're really, really stupid."

"How kind." Kurt turned and faced Gwen. "Change the subject."

Gwen grinned evilly. "You like Storm. You like Storm. You"-

"Now you just being belligerent. And stop reading my mind, I've told you that before."

"Fine." Gwen settled against the back of the couch, pouting. "I'll never do it again."

"Thank you."

"You're NOT welcome."

Kurt laughed. "How'd did it go tonight?"

"Pretty good. Hey, guess what, Dad's coming next week. He's going to stay here for a day, then take me back to Boston."

"That's good."

"Yeah, Boston rules."

"I mean about your father."

"Yeah, you're dad was like eighty, wasn't he?"

"No, he was only sixty-five."

"Big difference. Not."

A/N: Yeah, nothing happened. So sue me. Okay, Caroline's at the school and Gwen's dad is coming in a week…he's Kurt brother. Now what will happen? Evil smile. Keep reading!


	9. Chapter 9: All I Care About

A/N: Okay, the reviewers people just went on my cool people list, right after Gwen Stefani. Oh, by the way, Gwen isn't named after her. She's named after Gwen Vardon, Roxie Hart's original actress on Chicago in the seventies. I thought it fit since Gwen is kind of a musical fanatic.

Toxic-Beetle: Hope your birthday was good. And hahaha, you don't feel sorry for Caroline. Well, you're not really supposed to.

Ebdena: Thanks, I'm glad you think this is "kewl." Go finish a new chapter for Abandoned to Lose all Hope, please. Yay Kitten!

A/N 2: I"m writing this while watching THE PROUD FAMILY while all my friends have probably gone to a party and are laughing it up behind my back. My life is SO unfair.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. If I did, I'd wear that jacket Storm had in the museum scene all the time.

Chapter Nine: All I Care About

**Germany, 1984**

It had started a few days ago just after Caroline and Emmett had come home from the hospital. Caroline had been crying, and talking to Emmett in English, so he had no idea what they were saying. After a few minutes of trying to eavesdrop, he'd shocked himself on the stair railing and ran back to his room as fast as possible.

The next day, Emmett had gone home and left Caroline alone. She sat in the den, sniffling and staring off into space, while Kurt skulked around upstairs, feeling nauseous. It hadn't occured to him why Caroline might be alone, but he didn't like the emptiness of the house.

Later that day, after she had gone to bed, Kurt snuck downstairs to see if he could grab a book off of the shelf for the next day. He wasn't that interested, as he had been since Raven's departure, but if he had to stay upstairs all day he didn't want to be bored out of his skull.

He tiptoed over to the den, wincing as his bare, disfigured feet touched the freezing floor, and sighed quietly. He wouldn't be able to go outside tonight, it was too cold now. Kurt pressed his fingertip against the spine of the Bible, barely making out the gold lettering on it from the yellow streetlight touching down gently into the room through the window. It was wedged in tightly between two other books, but if he inched it off slowly, he could get it without Caroline ever knowing he had been there.

He nudged his hand underneath it, and pulled. It gave a little, but then stopped moving. He pulled it again, a little harder, and finally yanked it off, feeling momentarily triumphant, until, to his horror, three books fell off of the shelf and landed with a loud _thumph_ on the floor.

Kurt froze. Had Caroline heard that? If he ran now, he'd be able to get to his room before she came down. But if she didn't, and she found the books there in the morning, he'd pay big. He picked one up off of the floor and quickly put it back, his heart beating loudly. If she hadn't come down by now, she probably wouldn't at all. He slowed down and put the next one on the shelf more carefully. He'd be okay. He'd be okay.

His heart rate slowed down a tad, and he breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. He'd gotten himself worked up for nothing.

Were those footsteps?

Caroline was coming.

He thought about his options for a split second. If he ran, maybe he could make it. No. She was coming down that way. Maybe if he flattened himself against the wall, she wouldn't see him. He pressed his back in the corner formed by the bookshelf and the wall, just as Caroline came into the room with a broom held high.

"I know you're there!" she yelled, looking scared and holding the broomstick tightly, gripping the broom like a bat and walking forward slowly. "Come out now!"

Kurt didn't move. Caroline's knuckles turned white as she stepped into the light, looking around. He moved even closer to the wall, hoping she'd skip this corner.

"Come...out...NOW!" she screamed, her lips trembling. Kurt flinched, and she whirled around, looking ready to beat up an intruder. Instead she found him.

She stared at him for a minute, shocked. He stared back, fear gripping him in a big wave. They stood like that for a moment, until she stepped towards him, dropping the broom on the floor.

"What," she asked quietly, "are you doing here?"

Her voice was too dangerous. It was best not to answer. He simply made no motion.

She stepped forward once more.

"I said, What are you doing here?"

She was so close that if Kurt reached his arm out, he would touch her.

"Well?"

He didn't say anything, just pressed himself further into the corner.

"What are you doing here?"

The last sentence had a sharper edge to it, and Kurt knew he was in trouble. Caroline took one more step closer, and he was an inch away from her. He tried to move further back, but it was impossible. This was it. She was a bomb, and one sudden move would set her off.

He blinked.

Caroline hooked her fingers underneath the collar of his shirt, took a step backwards, and threw Kurt to the ground forcefully. He felt his body skid across the rug a half foot or so. Something in his mind sighed. Not this again.

Kurt twisted his thin frame around so he faced the ceiling and saw Caroline standing over him, shaking with anger. He raised his chest off of the floor and started to crawl backwards using his hands, but she wasn't having any of it. She bent down over him, grabbed his shirt, and pushed him flat on the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

Kurt choked in disbelief as he watched Caroline kneel on the floor, still holding his shirt, and straddle his hips, eyes blazing maliciously. He gasped for breath unsuccessfully.

She pulled his face close to hers, noses almost touching.

"This is all - your - fault," she snarled through gritted teeth. She shook him once, twice, three times.

Kurt coughed and wheezed, still shocked. "Wh-" he tried, and coughed again. "What?"

She threw him against the floor and pressed her hands against his shoulders, preventing any escape. He flung his arms and legs around uselessly.

"It's YOUR fault she had a heart attack! It's your fault she died! It's your fault we moved, and that Dad left us, and that I have no friends but Emmett, it's all your fault! I hate you!"

Caroline had never done this before. She had called him names, and sometimes insulted him, and hurt him, but she never talked to him, or held him down. He didn't like this at all, this wasn't normal. He didn't like the feeling of her sitting on him, he didn't like the pointless accusations. Rolanda had died?

"Get...off...me," he managed to choke out frantically. Instead she ground down harder and shifted her weight to the place right between his hips and his stomach, digging her long fingernails into his shoulders.

"Shut up!" Caroline screamed, nearly piercing his skin. "Just shut up!" She lifted her hands from his shoulders and Kurt sighed in relief, but not for long.

"What are you doing?" he cried, as she ripped off his shirt. She paused long enough to slap his cheek. He grabbed at it, feeling like it had just been set on fire.

Kurt was topless now, shivering at the cool air as she tossed his shirt off to the side. He stared up at Caroline, puzzled, shaky, and cold, as she pulled on the broom next to her and unscrewed the bristles angrily.

He was scared now.

"Please get off me," he whimpered quietly, tasting blood in his mouth from where he'd accidentally bitten his tongue in all of the excitement.

She ignored that last comment, and threw the broomstick away carelessly, waving the bristles around in the air.

"It's your fault," she spat out, and slammed the hard straw against his bare chest.

Kurt bit down on his lip and shut his eyes, feeling like his chest was trailing with fire ants where she'd hit him. If he screamed he'd only make her angrier. He risked a look from under his lashes at Caroline. She was raising the bristles over her head, preparing to smack him again. Kurt closed his lids again, bracing himself for the next swing.

_THWAP!_

He heard Caroline grunt as she hit him again, and felt an angry welt rise on his skin. He ground his teeth in pain. Why was she doing this to him?

_THWAP!_

Pain.

_THWAP!_

Pain.

_THWAP!_

His skin had split, he could feel a trickle of blood going down his ribs and the sting of open flesh.

_THWAP!_

Kurt couldn't help it, he cried out in agony. "Stop it!"

_THWAP-THWAP!_

She smacked him twice more, quick across the stomach and chest, and tossed the bristles away. Kurt pressed his palms against his eyes, wishing he was any place else but there.

Caroline had balled her hands into fists now, and slammed them against his burning skin. Kurt coughed as she punched him in the stomach, feeling ill. He was so close to crying, but he swore he wouldn't. He took a shaking breath, preparing himself for speech.

"Stop it!" he yelled, choking unhappily as the salt from her sweat seeped into his open wound. He flailed his arms at her face, feeling stupid as they didn't even touch her.

She shoved his hands away, snorting, and slapped his chest right where his ribs met, making a solid, flesh noise.

"You stop it!" she yelled in his face, holding his wrists tightly. He felt a whimper rise in his throat, but didn't let it escape, even as she slid her fingernail against the inline of his wrist.

"Hurts," Kurt murmured, lip trembling. He pressed his eyes closed as she punched him under the rib. He was going to start crying soon, he knew it. It felt like hell, and for all he knew he had died and was going to spend the rest of eternity with Caroline grinding on top of him, hurting him forever.

He let a dry sob out of his mouth. She smacked him again. Kurt began to weep; this was too much.

"Stop," he whispered, then louder: "Stop!"

To his surprise, Caroline rolled off, hugging her face to her knees. Kurt rolled up into a ball, tears streaming down his face. He could hear her crying too, until she stood up quickly and walked away, wiping her face on her sleeves.

Kurt was shocked. Caroline had left because he'd started crying, something that had never happened before. She was sad, because Rolanda had died?

Kurt lay there for a few minutes, not crying, just thinking. Everything hurt.

He stood up when the tingling pain had faded a bit, found his shirt tossed over the chair, and let it hang from his hand limply as he walked back up the stairs, trying to be quiet. He didn't want a repeat of the past hour.

Back in Raven's old room, he threw his torn shirt across the floor angrily and walked into the bathroom. He cleaned his cuts with some alcohol, gasping as it stung his chest. How many times would he have to do this?

Clean and bandaged a little later, Kurt stumbled back into the room and opened the dresser, searching for a new shirt. All he could find was a pale blue one with a hole in the sleeve. He moaned softly and pulled it on, walking towards the bed, which he lay down on eagerly.

He hadn't slept on it since Raven left, in maybe a subconscious hope of her returning, but stayed on his little rug. If he was sleeping here, was he accepting the fact that she wouldn't come back?

He nuzzled his face against the pillow, trying to see if he could still smell her. He breathed in deeply, searching for a trace of her perfume. He couldn't find it.

Kurt sat up and leaned on the headboard, shivering. How did it get so cold at night? A tear trickled down his cheek, and he began to cry again without even noticing. If Rolanda had died, it meant he was left alone in the house with Caroline. He'd give anything if Raven were back. She had ignored him, shushed him, and hadn't even held him, but she was his mother. He needed her, but he couldn't have her.

"Raven, Raven," he sobbed, curling up on her pillow and twisting his tail around himself. He lay like that, crying, until he fell asleep.

A/N: Ohhh, Kurt's hurt! So sad, I have a twisted mind. I only turned fourteen yesterday (October 7th), what's wrong with me!

Next chapter: Caroline's at the school, Kurt's having issues, and Gwen's sleeping in late. Stay tuned!

A/N 2: Okay, know what I realized a few days ago? Raven was reading Bridget Jones' Diary in 1984, but that book wasn't even written until 1997. GO ME! I'm so smart. Not.

A/N 3: Okay, my friend Jenn has a boyfriend who broke up with her and got back together with her in a two-hour period, even though he said he doesn't like her like that, only as a friend. She's liked him since the beginning of the school year, but yesterday she said she might like someone else and was thinking about breaking up with her boyfriend. What do you think she should do? Leave your opinion in your review along with your thoughts on this chapter.


	10. Chapter 10: Point of No Return

A/N: I've been putting my new Pat Benatar CD on repeat the entire weekend. I've been practicing my singing and acting, I really hope I get the lead in the school play this year, unlike the past three years running.

Jujube111: No, Kurt won't get his powers for a little while. Now imagine me smiling slyly. Bamf! Hey, you mentioned Concrete Angel before. Do you know who that song is based on? I do. Her name's Judith Barsi, go read about her on to see what I mean. Go to bio and notes. And thanks for your feedback on my friend Jenn, but I don't think she'd appreciate that advice. She's very melodramatic.

Toxic-Beetle: I'm glad you think the future book thing is funny. I just feel stupid…and that it's funny. Future book, hahahahaha. I'm a little hyper, can you tell? And as I said before, you're not really supposed to like Caroline, as she is the antagonist. Is that how you spell it?

A/N 2: My friend Jenn and her boyfriend broke up yesterday! (Again). But they're still really good friends, so that's okay. But NOW she likes my mortal enemy, the guy who said I was fat (in front of the entire cast of our school play) and tried to choke me backstage (I think).

A/N 3: None of my friends will shut up long enough to let me complain, so I will do it here. These are the things that are wrong with my life: The guy I like likes this girl who hates me, my singing voice sucks and the lead of the play will undoubtedly go to someone who's been having voice lessons for years, I'm very zitty right now, my friends all went to a movie I told them I wanted to see WITHOUT me (which sucks), and I failed an English test (I think) and got a 75 on a history test right before parent/teacher conferences. Yay! Not.

Oh, and my friend Nora was sitting alone at a cafateria table with Hot Nirvana Guy, so I went to keep her company, and HNG got up from the table quickly. AAAAAAAAH!

Sorry for that little whinefest. I needed to vent.

Disclaimer: As usual, I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd use Cerebro to track the guy I like every minute of the day, in a stalker way.

Chapter Ten: Point of No Return

New York, Present Day 

Gwen settled the blanket around herself in a comforting way and snuggled deeper into her bed. The air conditioner had been turned up to the fullest extent, thanks to Rogue, whose many layers made her hot in the summer. She was freezing, but at least she had an excuse to hunker down in the middle of the day.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, and mentally sighed. It was two in the afternoon, she'd been sleeping for thirteen hours somehow. It was the last time, she promised herself, that she'd stay up till one playing cards with Kitty and Rogue.

Gwen couldn't fall asleep after seeing Kurt so disrupted, so she had woken up a very angry Rogue and challenged her to a game. She had a bruise on her arm from where a shoe had been thrown at her, but at least it took things off her mind.

She heard the door creak open as she was thinking and turned over sleepily to face the person in her room. Her eyes were barely open, but she could make out Storm's brilliant white hair standing over her. She groaned.

"I'm sleeping, test me later." She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face into the pillow.

Storm wasn't having it. "Come on, nobody sleeps the entire day. It's impossible," she laughed.

Gwen pressed her head underneath her pillow. "Well, I do," she muttered grumpily.

"Get up and go eat something, I'm taking some kids to town today." Storm shook Gwen gently.

Gwen sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Can we go to Sephora or something? I need more lipstick."

Storm sighed. "Fine."

Gwen jumped out of bed, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. "Yes!"

Her teacher rolled her eyes and left, letting the door shut behind her.

"Hum," she murmured to herself, after laughing a bit at Storm's expense. She grabbed her favorite _Wicked_ t-shirt off of the desk chair and sniffed it. It could go another day. Pulling on the skirt under the table leg and wiggling her hips into it, she left, pulling at her hair with her brush. She could primp later; right now she was hungry. Gwen jogged to the kitchen, smoothing out the wrinkles in her clothes at the same time.

The new woman was sitting at the counter, eating a sandwich and looking pissed, as usual. Gwen laughed. Anyone who didn't like Kurt, she didn't like. Boy, would she have some fun with this uptight little-

_Better stop there,_ she thought, _before you say something stupid._

"Hi," she said, running over to the fridge and looking through it. There was only soda and some vegetables. She shut the door.

The woman sat up, placing her sandwich on the plate in front of her and looking wary. Gwen smiled sweetly.

"I'm Gwen," she said. "What's your name?"

The woman pursed her lips, obviously at a loss. "Caroline."

Gwen shut her eyes, thinking. "Caroline…hmm…you're part German, that's obvious. You hate that name, and you thought about changing it more than once. Am I right?"

Caroline stood up slowly. "Are you another one of these freaks?"

Gwen's smile faltered a little, but she contained her anger and kept a fake smile on her face. "I'm not a freak, no one here is, but yes, I am a mutant, as you're so blatantly saying. I telepathic, which means I can read your mind real easy. I could actually be doing it right now, and you couldn't stop me." She bit her tongue, fighting the sudden urge to smackthe womanupside the head.

Caroline suddenly looked nervous. "Did you read my mind before? About my name?"

"No, I'm just really good at reading body language, but thanks for the compliment." Gwen straightened, keeping herself relaxed, and Caroline sank back down into her chair.

"So…you're a mutant."

"Everyone here is. Even you." Gwen tilted her head slightly. "Sorry," she said sarcastically.

Caroline stood up again, looking mad. "No, I'm not."

Gwen turned around to the cabinet. "Yes, you are. Get over it." She reached for the knob, but drew back suddenly when she received an electrical shock. She whirled around.

Caroline's hair was getting frizzy, and her eyes were blazing. Gwen noticed with a jump that the lights were flickering.

"No, I'm not."

Gwen pointed to the lights. "Yes, you are. You've just been ignoring it, so you have no idea how to control your power." She turned back around. "Was that the last of the turkey?"

She heard a clattering behind her and felt Caroline standing next to her. She froze.

"No, I'm not."

"Ever heard of personal space?" Gwen gave Caroline a little shove, hoping she'd get the message, but she pushed back. Gwen was about to retaliate, but decided she wasn't in the mood. Maybe after she'd eaten. "Step to the side a bit, will you?"

Caroline, instead of moving, stood closer. Gwen was about to speak, when she felt a hand grab at the back of her hair and pull until her head touched her neck. She gasped.

"No, I'm not."

This wasn't fun at all, Gwen decided. "Let go of my hair!" She swung blindly to the side, but Caroline only pulled harder. "Let go of me now!" Gwen raised her voice. "Someone get her off of me!"

"No, I'm not."

"Fine, you're not! Just let go of me!"

She felt the woman's hand loosen and breathed a sigh of relief. What a nutjob. She hadn't been here for a day and already she could have been charged with assault. Gwen ran to the other side of the counter, avoiding any leftover fight that Caroline had.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked, rubbing her aching scalp. "You have issues, you realize that, right?"

This was apparently the wrong thing to say. Caroline moved quickly to the side Gwen was on, forcing her to run back around to the spot she'd been standing moments ago. The other woman followed her, and they repeated this for a while. Gwen thought it was funny, but she was too scared of the maniac in front of her to laugh. She ran around again, and made a move towards the door, only to have it slammed on her bare foot.

"Motherf-" she started, grabbing her toes, but stopped mid-word when she saw Storm.

"She tried to kill me," Gwen stated angrily, pointing at Caroline, who stiffened. Storm suddenly had an expression on her face that Gwen had come to see her wear whenever they were talking.

Storm stared at Caroline, then at Gwen. "Please," she said, sinking into a kitchen chair and pressing her face into her hands. "Fill me in on the details."

Gwen and Caroline both gave their accounts of the past few minutes.

* * *

Two hours later, Storm and Gwen left the professor's office, leaving Caroline in there with him, both looking either annoyed or angry. Gwen was angry.

"It's not my fault she went nuts," she muttered. "I refuse to do detention for a week. That decision was totally one-sided on his part."

"I'm saying this as a friend, not as a teacher," Storm told her, "but shut up."

**The TV Room**

"…a week," Gwen said to Kurt, "of sitting in a classroom, doing nothing, because I got attacked by a nut. She could have ripped my hair off, and she said she didn't, so she's automatically right! No one believes me!"

Kurt sighed, and slid over on the couch closer to Storm, trying to avoid Gwen's flailing hands. Gwen stared at him for a moment, wondering why he looked so sick.

"This is the part where you go, 'I believe you, Gwen.'"

"Do you have detention with me?"

"You suck, you know that? And yeah, Professor Chuck E. Cheese thought it'd be a good idea." She snorted, chewing on her fingernail.

"You're lucky that's all you got," Storm interrupted, leaning over Kurt to look at Gwen. "Taunting a new person at the school." She shook her head.

"What's wrong with you?" Kurt asked.

"I didn't taunt her, I simply informed her that she had special genes that allowed her to control electricity. And she took it personally. She's kind of mean, anyhow. I bet if she was famous she'd have an episode of a Law and Order series based on her life. I bet they based the Deacan Briggs 1 thing on her, only with guys."

"No, they didn't."

"Shut up, Kurt, you don't watch Law and Order. And I think your accent is funny. Funny! Storm, can we please go to town now? I need to take my mind off of things with some new lipstick." She flicked Kurt in the forehead. "What's with the death look?"

"I'm fine. Go get ready."

Gwen stood up from the couch, smoothing her skirt and stomping out of the door. She poked her head back in the room at the last minute.

"One day you're going to wish you'd listened to me! Everyone here is a moron!" She ran out of the door, letting them catch just a glimpse of her giving them a certain finger.

Kurt stared after her for a moment, then pushed himself into the space where Gwen had been before, and curled his knees to his chin.

Storm poked his shoulder gently. "What is with the death look?"

Kurt uncurled himself reluctantly. "Nothing."

"You really do look sick, Kurt."

"I'm not sick. I'm…just tired."

Storm sat up straight, letting her right leg hang down. "This is about last night, isn't it?" (A/N: I'm writing this while listening to the Outkast song Roses. Listen to the lyrics, don't they tie into this fic? Caroline!).

Kurt closed his eyes, looking slightly pained. "Ororo, I'm used to it."

"Kurt"-

"I just wish I wasn't."

Whatever Storm was about to say, she couldn't remember. She was shocked by what Kurt had said. All she could do was grab the hand wrapping around his folded knees again and give it a squeeze. He squeezed back, stroking the skin between her forefinger and thumb. They sat there for a few minutes, neither saying anything, until they heard footsteps in the hallway.

Gwen was back in the door, this time with Rogue, Kitty, and Jubilee. Kurt and Storm jumped and pulled away.

Kitty raised her eyebrows, and Gwen smirked, although not for the same reasons.

"I just told everyone how old your parents were when you were born, Kurt," Gwen said loudly, looking triumphant. "Twenty two and sixty three. I hope you enjoy all the teasing you're going to get for the next two weeks. That's for not stopping my detention." She turned to Storm. "This is everyone who wants to go." She motioned to her friends, then at Storm, indicating she should stand up.

"Let's go," Gwen said, marching past the door haughtily, sticking her tongue out at Kurt on the way. Kitty, Jubilee, and Rogue said goodbye and followed her.

Storm watched them leave, then quickly bent down over Kurt and hugged him.

"It'll be okay," she whispered in his ear, then straightened and went after the girls.

Kurt sat on the couch for a while, staring off into space. The past few minutes had been a little weird. First of all, he couldn't ever tell if Gwen was telling the truth or not – after all, she was the one who had convinced him she hadn't been the one to set his bed on fire when she was twelve, even though she'd been caught with a packet of used matches five minutes afterward – so she might have been exaggerating about Caroline attacking her.

And how bad, he wondered, did his luck have to be for her –of all places – to end up here, the one place where he felt safe? He pressed his knees to his face again. _Was_ he safe here? He wouldn't have put it past Caroline to try and hurt Gwen, but Gwen was extremely dramatic. Kurt didn't know whether to feel defensive or outraged.

All he knew was that, six years ago, when Gwen, as a skinny, energetic eleven year old, had come to his circus and somehow harassed her way into his heart, he had made a promise to himself to take care of her.

So that meant, he realized, he had to go see Caroline now. He closed his eyes and straightened himself out, giving the couch a few frustrated punches as he stood.

Kurt walked out into the hallway, taking a few deep breaths, then laughed nervously. What did he possibly have to be scared of? He was stronger, she was a lot older, he was bigger, and all she had done last night when she had seen him was scream. He breathed in through his nose. What did he have to be scared of?

He exhaled slowly, feeling his heartbeat slow down, and began to walk down the hall. He'd find Caroline, she wouldn't hurt him, he could take care of Gwen. Right?

There was no turning back, if that's what it meant.

1- The Deacon Briggs episode of Law and Order: SVU is the only time I've been truly scared. There's this guy who's been molesting boys for like twenty years, and he has this room where he keeps all of the baseball caps of the boys. There's this part where he is supposed to identify them all, and he sniffs the hat he picks up dreamily, then recites the boy's name, age, baseball team, year he was molested, etc. I swear to god I felt like throwing up. And that was in the first half hour. Go to and look for the Quarry episode, that's it. I just mentioned it because it creeped me out, and Caroline is supposed to be creepy.

A/N: Well, that's chapter ten! Sorry it took so gotdang long. I've had like a buttload of homework, and today is parent/teacher conference day. I'm dead.

On the other hand, I got into this a capela group! Yay! It's the first time I've tried out for something and actually gotten in!

A/N 2: Yes, everyone in the story is clueless. But if they weren't, well, Caroline would be kicked out, and everyone would be happy! That wouldn't be interesting, would it?

Next chapter: Will Kurt go bungee jumping off the Statue of Liberty?

Of course not.

Kurt angst, but I think I'm going to do something with this chapter a little…unorthodox of myself. Evil smile. I'll also tell you how parent/teacher conferences went.

Stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 11: Comforting Lie

A/N: How lucky are you guys who read my story? Very very lucky, that's how lucky. Right after I uploaded to this site, the electricity man came up to my door, said something about a bill, and shut off our electricity. So you got the story before my house got turned into a non-modern place. At night, my family and I sat in the kitchen, bundled up in our outerwear, eating potato chips by candlelight. Well, middle-class sure was fun!

Muhjaa-ness: All right, another person to whom I can talk about non-important things! And yes, there will be a confrontation, as if that was the end of the story, it would be extremely lame and stupid and you'd flame me. Ta!

Toxic-Beetle: There hasn't been a chapter of this story that you haven't reviewed. So I'd just like to say… FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER! GO WATCH IT! That's a Wayne - someone song, FYI. Danke schoen, too! That means thank you very much in German.

A/N 2: On a more serious note (because you don't want to listen to me whine forever about nothing), Child Abuse Prevention Day is November 19th. The official color is dark blue, so make a shirt or a ribbon and wear it that day. Yeah, in case you didn't realize, child abuse is my concern in this world. So support my story and me and wear a dark blue ribbon! Thank you!

A/N 3: Oh, by the way, my parent/teacher meeting went…less than perfect, let's just say. Nnnghh.

A/N 4: Okay, this is the chapter where you find out some stuff about someone in this story…keep reading to find out who!

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd use Professor X's money to buy a really fancy laptop, on which I wouldn't do anything but write fanfics (because I'm cool like that).

Chapter Eleven: Comforting Lie

**Germany, 1984**

Caroline slammed her door, stretching the cuff of her sleeve over her wrist and wiping her eyes on it. Crying was weakness, and she hated herself for showing it. As far as anyone needed to know, she was strong, capable, and nothing could hurt her.

So why did she hurt so much right now?

Her palms still stung from where she had hit that mutant kid. But that wasn't it. It felt like there was a hole going through her, right above her stomach.

It had to be Rolanda. Her mother. Even after her death, Caroline mused, snorting mirthlessly, she was hurting her.

Like all those times when her father had hit her when she was a kid back in America. Rolanda had never stopped him. It had forced him to leave eventually. Caroline couldn't help but miss him, even with his beatings. It was Rolanda's fault.

Or after he father had left. Rolanda had made Caroline leave America and go back to Germany. She had friends there, a life, but in Germany, people had made fun of her American accent and her clothes. She couldn't imagine how anyone could like that place.

And when Rolanda had let her friend Raven and her freak child into the house. How could she let people like that into their home? Blue devil deserved everything he got.

Caroline walked over to her bed, pausing for a moment to stare at her reflection in the mirror on the wall. The darkness made her face seem ghostly in the little sliver of moonlight coming in from her window. She shivered, hating how big and strange it made her eyes look, and threw herself under the covers of her blankets.

She remembered how it all started, her and the kid.

It was amazing, somehow, that she had gone so long without hitting him when he came.

Raven had come in the middle of the night, knocking on their door frantically. Rolanda had let her in, listening to her hysterical mumbles and sitting her at the table, making a cup of tea at the same time. Raven had set down a small bundle of what looked like blankets at her feet and started crying, talking about her and Kurt being chased. Caroline, who had been sitting on the stairs at the time, eavesdropping, didn't see anyone else but her mother and her friend. Who was Kurt?

"…Raven," she heard her mother say, and Caroline tuned in, "slow down. I can't understand a word you're saying."

Raven gulped, once, twice, then spoke. "They…saw…him…and wanted…to kill him." Big breath. "So I ran."

Who was him? What the hell was going on? Who were they?

"I'm such…an idiot."

"Raven, sweetheart," Rolanda said, setting a cup of tea in front of her, "calm down. Tell me everything."

Raven shivered, and sipped her tea. She looked weary, older than she really was. "Do you remember when Eric died? Two years ago?"

Eric. Caroline remembered going to his funeral. One of her mother's friends, extremely old. She remembered Raven, suddenly. Some trophy wife, less than half his age. She listened eagerly.

"That was the last time I saw you."

Raven nodded. "Do you know why he had a heart attack?"

"He was old, Raven." Slight smile.

Raven smiled back, waterily. "No, he was scared."

"Of what?"

"Rolanda, I have a child."

This seemed to surprise Rolanda. She frowned. "What?"

Raven laughed stupidly. "He's a boy. My baby boy. Eric died when he saw him. Right after I gave birth."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Because no one can see him."

"Raven"-

"I'm serious, Rolanda. They saw him, and look what happened." She laughed again, and Caroline suddenly wondered if she was insane.

Rolanda seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Raven, do you want to stay here for a while? We have a spare bedroom, you can use it."

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Raven, why don't you just"-

"I'll show him to you. But promise you won't scream, he's sleeping."

Rolanda stared, her frown lines deepening in thought, then nodded. Caroline leaned forward; watching Raven open the bundle at her feet, then pick up something out of it. Caroline couldn't see it, as Raven had her back to her. She cursed under her breath.

She heard Rolanda gasp. "Raven, what"-

"I don't know, Rolanda. But he's mine, I can tell. Same hair as Eric, same nose as mine. His name's Kurt. Don't wake him up."

Rolanda looked shocked, staring at the child on Raven's lap. Caroline tried to send a telepathic message, telling her to turn around. It didn't work.

Rolanda stared at Raven's lap for a few more moments, stunned, then she shook herself out of her reverie. "Raven, why don't you two go up to the bedroom, settle in, and we can talk about this in the morning?"

Raven sighed, then nodded. "All right."

Rolanda stood up, and helped Raven stand, supporting her. They turned around, facing Caroline, and she finally saw the kid.

He was small, and couldn't have been older than two. Curled around his mother's arms with his eyes shut tight, and the tip of his thumb was almost in his mouth, it would have been almost cute, had it not been for his blue-black skin, pointed ears, and a forked tail twisted around in a circle. He looked like a demon child.

He was a mutant, obviously. Caroline felt her heart slam in her throat, then, without a second thought, ran up the stairs and into her room before they could see her.

A year later, and they were still in her house. Caroline wished that she could go back in time, maybe stop Raven from getting in their house. But it was too late. Today, Raven would start word at Rolanda's company, leaving her son alone while Caroline went to school. Afterwards, Caroline would come home, and make sure he hadn't set the place on fire with his breath or caused a mini-apocalypse. She didn't really care what happened to him, actually. She planned to spend as little time with him as possible. His yellow eyes freaked her out. They were big, wide, and gave her the feeling he was reading her thoughts.

That day had not been a good one for her. She could remember some teasing, bad enough to force her out of class to go into the bathroom to cry. Crying was weakness, and weakness made her angry.

At home, the first thing she had noticed when she walked in was the child, sitting next to the window in her living room, staring out of it blankly. For some reason – or maybe a very obvious one – the sight made her angry.

The kid saw her, and jumped, looking wary. He knew she didn't like him, he was cautious around her. He had a right to be. Moving slowly, he walked around her, probably going to wherever the hell he slept at night.

He muttered something, it sounded like, "Sorry," but Caroline was annoyed, she was pissed, and she had had enough of this freak living in her house. She grabbed his arm, twisted him around to face her, and punched him in the stomach. She would have preferred the nose, but if there was evidence, she'd get in trouble. She had a scar on her shoulder from her father to remind her of that. No evidence.

If she had split his skull open with a hammer, he couldn't have been more surprised. He cried out, doubled over, breathing hard. This gave Caroline a weird sense of pleasure, and a bit of sympathy, but she pushed that thought into the back of her head and grabbed his black hair, forcing him up. His eyes were shocked, and scared. She heard choking noises, and realized she must have knocked the breath out of him. She did not mind. Instead, she did it again, and again, and again, until she had taken all of her anger out on him.

Then she went upstairs to her room, turned on the light, and started her homework. She didn't give it a second thought. She was happier than she had been in a while, and actually thought herself stupid for not doing it before.

That was how it started.

Caroline was startled awake from her memory as she heard footsteps on the stairs, and realized the kid was walking up from the living room. She almost went out of her room, maybe hit him with the broom again, but she was too tired, and she felt sick.

Still Rolanda.

Caroline had to admit to herself, maybe it wasn't Rolanda who was making her sick. Maybe Caroline was sad about her death. But she pushed that thought out of her mind.

Thank god for Emmett. Level-headed, smart, and strong, he had come from America to go to college – the same one as Caroline. They had met in a human biology lecture, and after spending five minutes with him, she didn't want to go anywhere without him. He had proposed a few months later, in fact, the night Rolanda had her heart attack.

She loved Emmett, and after they had finished college, they'd get jobs (college drained out her money) and save up to buy a house in America, and get married, and he'd own his own clinic, and she'd be a doctor there, and-

Caroline stopped her train of thought, realizing that it bordered on the edge of a fantasy. But she did want that, and so did Emmett.

He didn't know about the child. She had preferred to keep that a secret. She was planning on tossing him out, anyways, it was her house and he didn't belong there. Any day, he was out.

Just as soon, Caroline realized, wishing she could punch that idea out of herself, as he stopped reminding her of herself.

But it was true. His mother had left him, and he was getting used as a punching bag. He was too much like her in some ways. Caroline hated that.

But she'd throw him out soon, she promised herself. Any day now. Then she could start a new life, with no one hurting her, and with no one daring to try to.

A/N: Gasp! Was Caroline herself abused? Does that explain a lot? Probably!

Yeah, you know the deal: Review, please, and what did you think of this chapter? Did you like the Caroline's-point-of-view thing? Let me know!

A/N 2: Next chapter: Will Gwen join a gospel choir and travel to Prague with them?

Of course not.

Kurt and Caroline will talk, Gwen will go shopping with Storm and co., and I'll be planning a way to convince someone to give me a computer for eight bucks.


	12. Chapter 12: I Know the Truth

A/N: Yeah, I'm too excited to wait any longer. Remember that contest I told you about in Chapter One? Here it is:

Go look at the chapter title box. Go, click on it. You know those weird titles I put up for each chapter? Like: Chapter Two: Something Bad. Chapter Five: Goodbye Love. Etc, etc. They all have something in common. What is it? I put some really easy ones in there, and some harder to find ones. You should be able to figure it out.

If you get it right…erm…hey, I have nothing to give! Well, if you get it right, I will give you a box of cookies. Oh well, it's just a little quest. Have fun! Leave your answer in your review!

A/N 2: Whoooooo! Hyper hyper hyper! That's me, Hyperilla! Hundreds of fleeing people, running from my feet. Yaaaaah!

Bear with me, I am hyper. If you didn't know.

Toxic-Beetle: I've said it before, and I'll say it again because, quite honestly, I'm insane: You don't have to like Caroline, she is the antagonist. And thank you, both for the compliment and the ribbon thing. Yes, the power thing sux. HYPER!

Excuse me for that.

A/N 3: I'm doing this while I'm supposed to be studying for this test. Just goes to show you how nonresponsible I am.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did…oh my god, have I run out of X-Men fantasies! It cannot be!

Oh yeah, If I owned the X-Men, I'd make Kurt teleport me to New York to go see the musical Wicked. I LOVE WICKED! There we go.

Chapter Twelve: I Know the Truth

**New York, Mall, Present Day**

Gwen punched a lip-gloss brush angrily into its tube, still fuming about her punishment. Stupid righteous X-Men, always looking out for the misunderstood, the rejected, the basket cases, the ones who Cannot See the Light.

As far as Gwen was concerned, they could toss Caroline out on her butt and she'd still survive, even without the precious Professor. She wasn't happy with Kurt either, because despite the fact that Gwen was his niece, he was on Storm's ("Stupid," she muttered) side.

And although she knew it was slightly vain, she spent a lot of time every morning flat ironing her hair to stick – straight proportions, almost never showing her black Wagner curls, a trait shared by both her dad and her uncle, to the world, and Caroline had declared war on her by touching it. Her hair was very important to her.

She stopped to stare at her reflection in the stair railing she was passing, and quickly swiped her shiny new red gloss on her lips, feeling proud of herself and her wonderful new find. When she met up with everyone else in the mall, she was not going to share her happiness with anyone, as she was still in an angry mood. Just they wait; they'd wished they'd have listened to her. But then it would be too late. Gwen shivered dramatically and kept walking along in the direction of some weird sports store, where she knew she'd find Jubilee.

Upon arrival, she interrupted herself from a slightly unsettling, somewhat sexual fantasy involving her and Adam Pascal hiring the cast of Rent to take over the mansion and all of its inhabitants, mainly the people she did not care for much at the moment. Blinking, she shook herself awake as the strong scent of rubber, sweat, and metal filings hit her nose.

Jubilee was, of course, staring wistfully at some two hundred odd dollar punching bag. Kitty stood next to her, looking bored to tears, and Gwen saw that some kind of trade was going on here. Kitty went with Jubilee, Jubilee paid for a new pair of jeans. Whatever.

"Hey," she said, strolling over to them. Kitty looked relieved.

"I, like, so hate sports," Kitty said, as a greeting.

Gwen frowned in agreement. "Jubilee, it's almost seven. We're supposed to meet Storm now, remember? If we're two seconds late she'll probably blame me because everything is my fault, apparently."

Jubilee sighed, gave the bag one last desperate glance, and turned around. "Fine."

Kitty looked at Gwen's lips. "Red," she said approvingly. "Nice."

Gwen suddenly felt like bursting with love and appreciation for Kitty. "Thank you," she said happily. "Where did Rogue say she was going?"

"She's looking for some summer gloves someplace. What are summer gloves like, anyway?" Kitty twirled a piece of her hair around her finger in a puzzled way.

"I don't know. Let's go, this place smells like feet."

"It's a sports store," Jubilee told Gwen as they were leaving. "It's sweat. It's natural."

"It's nasty. It's feet." Gwen smirked. "Somehow, I do not get tired of being right all the time."

"You're not right."

"Yes, I am. I always am. Unfortunately, no one at school thinks the same. But just wait until-"

"Gwen, shut up."

"Why is everyone telling me to shut up today?"

Her friends ignored her, instead looking ahead to a clothing store, with Rogue leaving it with a plastic bag. She spotted them, and walked over, meeting them halfway.

"Hey," she said, twisting the flimsy handles through her fingers. "Where's Storm?"

"We're supposed to meet her at the front door now. Come on." Jubilee motioned over in the direction of the down escalator. They walked over and got on, Gwen making comments all the while on Rogue's new gloves.

"…you know what I'm saying?" she asked, staring up at Rogue. "There is, in no way, a summer glove. It's impossible. You will be having a sweaty palmed few months, because there is no such thing as a summer glove."

"Well, these are."

"No, they're n-" Gwen stopped suddenly, grabbing the railing and staring up at a point behind Rogue's shoulder. She looked stunned.

"Is that who I think it is?" she said, shocked. "Look!"

Rogue turned around. Gwen grabbed her and twisted her around.

"No, don't look! He'll see us!"

"Who's 'he'?"

Kitty and Jubilee were now looking around as well. "What are you, like, talking about?"

Gwen gritted her teeth in a whisper. "Is that or is that not John over there?"

Rogue turned around. "Gwen, I think you're right!" She looked stunned as well. "Isn't he supposed to be with the Brotherhood? Why is he here?"

"How do you even know it's him?"

"I'd recognize him anywhere. His hair's really familiar." Gwen patted her own.

Kitty thought this over. "Call him, and if he turns around, we'll know."

No one said anything. Meanwhile, the dark haired boy was moving away. Gwen fidgeted, then screamed, "HEY, JOHN!"

He whirled around, looking surprised. Gwen grabbed Rogue's arm excitedly.

"It's him! It's him! I called his name, and he turned around! Because his name is John!"

Rogue shook her off. "Who's going to talk to him?"

Again, no one moved. The subject of John Allardyce at the mansion was a taboo sort of thing, after he had left the X-Men to join Magneto and Mystique in the Brotherhood. Gwen sometimes thought that he had made the right choice, but that was only when she was mad at someone at the school, like she was now.

"Hey, John!" She began to run up the escalator, and realized that it was going down, making her look extremely stupid. She groaned inwardly, ran harder, and eventually managed to make it to the floor (1).

John stood in front of her, hands in his pockets, playing with something that looked like his Zippo lighter. He saw her, but his face was expressionless. Gwen ran over to him, panting.

"Down," she said, thrusting her thumb over her shoulder towards the escalator, where her friends had gotten off and gone on the opposite one, standing a little bit away, waiting for her.

"So…um…what are you doing here?" Gwen asked, suddenly thinking about taking up smoking just for moments like this, so she could do something with her hands that wouldn't make her look nervous.

"It matter?" He took his lighter out of his pocket and began to flip the lid up, down, up, down. Gwen frowned.

"Stop that. Yes, it matters."

"Why?"

"I'll ask questions. Where have you been?" She let a slight edge creep into her voice, just realizing how much she had been worrying about him. From what she had heard from Rogue, the Brotherhood was not exactly a charity, and she had sort of been friends with John before he left.

Up, down. "Around."

"John, cut it out. Answer either one of my previous questions. Or feel free to answer both."

Up, down. Up, down. "I'm here with Mystique, while she gets something."

"And?"

"That's all I'm saying." Up. Down.

"You know I'm a telep-" Gwen paused, then lowered her voice. "A telepath."

"You can't scare me, Radar."

"Fine. You know we've all been really worried about you at the mansion, right?"

"Like I care." Up, down.

"Fine. But we have been. Especially-" she pointed at her friends, who all turned away guiltily – "them."

"I can see."

"Wow, Magneto really sweetened you up, didn't he?"

John let a slight Elvis-esque sneer creep across his mouth. "Aren't you the one who just ran up a down escalator?"

Gwen resisted the urge to slap him. "None of you business. Now what are you going to do about this?"

John seemed surprised. "About what?"

She puffed her chest up indignantly. "Nine months of worrying, stupidhead! If someone we knew was possibly in trouble – for example, you – it's kind of disconcerting!"

"'We'? Have you become schizophrenic?" Was he smirking?

"Them too, you moron!" Gwen pointed at her friends again. "Quit smirking? It's not funny!"

"What do you want? Walkie talkies?"

"Quit flipping smirking! I'm mad at you!"

"If I give you-" he grinned – "_guys_ a way of talking to me, will you be happy?"

"Obviously, yes."

"Fine."

They began to work out a plan, Gwen still waving her hands around angrily, when she noticed a tall, blonde woman come over to them.

"Got it, Pyro," she said, holding up a bag from some locks store and looking harassed. "Who's she?" She nodded to Gwen.

Gwen suddenly realized who the woman was. "You're Mystique, right? I'm Gwen Wagner."

The woman's eyes suddenly opened wide, and her previous sneer had washed away, leaving an expression of shock. "Do you happen to be related to, ahm, Kurt?"

Gwen jumped. She had not expected that. "Kurt Wagner? He's my uncle, or half uncle. You know him?"

Mystique shook herself, sneer slowly coming back. "I met him back in the fall, after your mansion was attacked."

She looked familiar, Gwen decided. She couldn't say why, though. All she knew was that she and John had a plan, and that Mystique didn't look like a nice person. She wanted out.

"I have to go," she said, glancing back at her friends. "Bye." She turned around. Gwen knew it was a weird way to leave, but she wasn't interested in this conversation anymore.

"What happened?" Rogue asked her, as they went down the escalator.

"He's fine. That Mystique woman was there, too."

Rogue suddenly looked annoyed, and muttered a curse word under her breath. "I hate her. Now what?"

"We don't tell Storm."

"Why not? He was her student."

"Because she'll panic, and try to get him back at the school."

"So?"

"He doesn't want to be there. He's okay with Magneto, I think. And also I'm mad at Storm."

"Good reason."

"Yeah. I'm always right."

"I didn't say that."

"Well, I did."

* * *

Kurt sighed as he stared out of his window. He couldn't find Caroline anywhere. Just as well, he thought, he didn't want to face her, even though he had been prepared to. His heart had been pounding maniacally for the past few hours, as he walked around the mansion, asking some of the students lounging around in the heat if they had seen her. They hadn't. 

As far as Kurt knew, he had looked everywhere possible. Right now, he was tired, he was not sure what to do about Gwen, and all he wanted to do was sit and discuss this with Storm.

He flung himself onto his bed, burying his face into his pillow. He had stayed up late last night, thinking, and now he'd do anything to go to sleep now.

Classes ended on Friday, he thought, and he still had to grade the exams he had given the week before to make the final cut. He considered getting up to do it right then, but his willpower had run out, and he fell asleep.

Kurt wasn't sure how much time had passed when he woke up to the sound of someone hammering on his door angrily.

He moaned, annoyed, and stood up, rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his hair quickly. What time was it?

The knocking hadn't stopped. "I'm coming," he called out, and walked over to the door. Upon unlocking it, he heartbeat sped up again.

Caroline was standing there, looking angry as usual. Kurt opened his mouth, about to say something, anything – "get away from me" suddenly felt pretty attractive – when, before he could react or teleport, she punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. He yelped in pain.

Caroline walked in and stood over him. "Tell that yappy little girl to keep her big mouth shut!"

Kurt grabbed his eye, wincing, and sat up. "She was right, wasn't she? She was telling the truth about you!"

She pushed him back down with her boot. Kurt hit the floor fast and gasped.

"Tell her," she said, grinding her heel into the spot between his ribs, "to shut up."

Kurt grabbed her ankle, and with all the strength he could muster, managed to push her foot off. He exhaled in relief, and teleported to a standing position a few feet away from Caroline.

"Don't touch her again! Don't touch her ever again!"

Caroline squinted angrily and clenched her hands into fists. "I'll do what I want. If she talks, I'll make you both pay."

Kurt bit his lip, wincing as his sharp teeth pressed into his flesh. "You can't hurt me anymore, Caroline."

"Don't say my name. And I can hurt you, and that girl."

"If you touch her, I'll-" he paused, thinking. "I'll-"

Caroline snorted humorlessly. "Do what? Bite me? Set me on fire? You haven't changed at all, have you? You're still a stupid little boy inside, no matter how old you are."

Kurt felt a flash of self-indignant anger flash through him, and then quashed it down. "Gwen's smart, you can't hurt her. And you won't hurt me."

"Yes, I can. If either you or her talks, I might not be able to take you now, but I can punch her living daylights out." She grinned evilly. "So don't say a word."

She gave him a contemptuous look, then twirled around with a slight, surprising flair of show and walked out of his room, slamming the door and leaving Kurt stunned.

He stood in his spot for a few moments, then sank down into his bed, clutching his throbbing eye. He knew he should tell someone about this confrontation, but he also knew that Caroline was telling the truth when she said she'd hurt Gwen if she wanted to. He believed that no one else was in trouble, and maybe if he were quiet, the only wound in the mansion would be his bruised eye. What it all came down to, he thought, was that if he didn't tell anyone about anything that had happened, maybe nothing more would occur.

He mulled over that for a while, and decided that it was the way to go. It would be okay. It would be okay. Kurt got up, and began to walk to the kitchen to get some ice for his swelling eye.

(1): Something my brother did at a museum once. Man, those guards got mad at him. It was funny, though.

A/N: Yeah, so my play auditions are coming up, and guess what? I have a really, really bad cold! I can't sing at all! Yay!

Read with sarcasm.

A/N 2: Next chapter: Will Kurt join Caroline in a two person act on Broadway?

Of course not.

Kurt angst, a year has passed. Blah blah blah. I'm in a bad mood about my sore throat.


	13. Chapter 13: Feeling This

A/N: DING DING DING DING DING!

The titles of the chapters ARE all songs! Sorry they were a little obscure, but it's what I listen to:

Chapter One: 83 is a song by John Mayer; Chapter Two: Something Bad is from the play Wicked (which I want to see!); Chapter Three: Sunday Morning is a song by No Doubt; Chapter Four: I Fought the Law is a Clash song; Chapter Five: Goodbye Love is a Rent song (I also want to see Rent); Chapter Six: Smells Like Teen Spirit is a Nirvana song; Chapter Seven: Hell is for Children is a Pat Benatar song; Chapter Eight: You Okay Honey? is also a Rent song; Chapter Nine: All I Care About is a song from the play Chicago; Chapter Ten: Point of No Return is a song from The Phantom of the Opera; Chapter Eleven: Comforting Lie is a No Doubt song; Chapter Twelve: I Know the Truth is a song from the play Aida. Whew. I'm done now.

Jujube111: Please don't do bad things to me, I'm so young! Hahahahaha! And yes, everyone hates Caroline. Like me, even though I created her. Lalalala.

Toxic-Beetle: Give her something to complain about, teeheehee. Coheed and Cambria freak me out. You did get it right, though. Songs!

ChibiChew: Yeah, well, your FACE is not realistic…just kidding. I know it wasn't realistic, but oh well. It does actually play a part later, so, uh, stay tuned! And yes, they're songs. Cookies for all!

Oh, wait, am I not allowed to reply back here anymore? Oopsy. Well, don't report me.

A/N 2: If you want to find out what happened in my school play, please go look in my profile. It's there. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's so unfair. Go, go look. Now. It's under: Another Tragedy.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd hire Dr. McCoy to fix my stupid cold, unlike the stupid doctor I just saw, who made me wait for an hour outside her office, then did not prescribe anything, leaving me in total misery. Oy vay.

Chapter Thirteen: Feeling This

Germany, 1986 

Kurt peeled off his shirt, sticky with sweat, and tossed it to the ground, barely pausing in his activity. It was hot outside, probably the hottest day of the year (although he had said that about all of the days that summer, he realized), and he had just heard Caroline drive off in her car a few minutes ago, leaving him free to play in the backyard.

She had been doing that often, lately, instead of staying in the house during the summer like usual. Kurt suspected it had something to do with Emmett, but he didn't really care. He got to play outside during the day, and not bake in his room like always.

Ever since Raven had left and Rolanda had died suddenly, Caroline had only spoken English around the house, both to him and to Emmett, who came over a lot. Kurt had quickly picked up on it, and eventually he could speak it relatively well. It didn't matter, because he had no one to speak it with, but it gave him a small sense of pride to have learned it in less than a year.

That feeling was the same one he'd been getting again recently, one that had started when he started playing outside. He had learned to climb the towering trees, with a lot of help from his tail (which, over the past year, had grown several inches, as had he). His hands had grown rougher with wear and tear, and he was a lot stronger than he had once been. A few weeks before, when Caroline had been trying to hit him with her brush, he had grabbed it out of her hands and threw it away, then proceeding to run to his room as fast as he possibly could, which was something he couldn't have done some months ago. Caroline had a steely grip.

While Kurt had been climbing a tree a week before, though, he had discovered another special little talent he didn't know he had. It had rained the night before, and the branches were still slippery with water residue. Kurt knew he shouldn't have taken such a big risk as to try and still reach the top of the big oak, but Caroline had been in a bad mood the previous night, and his legs still ached, so he was looking for any distraction.

Halfway up the tree, he had realized exactly how bad an idea it had been to do it. His hands were torn open from losing his grip a few times, and he was very close to falling out of the tree. His feet had slipped from the branch below, and he had just managed to catch the one above him, but he couldn't get a landing; the bough was too far beneath him; and his hands were sliding off. Kurt was pretty high up off the ground, and he knew it wouldn't be pretty if he fell right then.

So, using his seven- year old logic, he saw the tree branch only a few feet away from him, and using his tail as leverage, he began to swing his body back and forth. When he finally found his momentum, he muttered a short prayer, locked his view on the other tree branch closest to him, and on the frontward swing, let go of the branch and almost as fast, grabbed the other one.

He wouldn't have been surprised to find out that he was falling, and for a few seconds, he thought he was. He shut his eyes tight, but when he realized that he wasn't dead, he opened them and cried out in amazement. He had actually made it.

Every day since then, he had practiced swinging around on the trees, then adding his legs to the mix, then his tail, never once falling. He could even do a flip in midair, if he had enough space between two branches. Kurt didn't know what the word was for these tricks he did, but he knew he had a talent for them. He spent every day when Caroline was gone practicing them, perfecting them. He had come to realize, over the past few days, what it felt like to be good at something, even though the chances of him ever needing to perform those flips and cartwheels were slim to none.

But still, he thought, running over to the trees, it was a nice feeling.

A/N: Mwahahahaha. Get it? Get it? Get it? GET IT? Do you get the point of this chapter?

I'm nuts, excuse me.

A/N 2: Okay, for the skeptics out there who think a) no kid would be stupid enough to try to do a flip from tree to tree and b) he wouldn't actually make it, I have this to say:

a) you'd be surprised by what seven – year olds think they can do. I have a bump on my nose from trying to do a flip on my bed and smacking my face into a wall and b) he's KURT, AKA NIGHTCRAWLER, I think he'd make it. Bye for now!


	14. Chapter 14: Keep It Together

A/N: Still pissed beyond all measure about the play…oh, just so you don't think I'm completely whiny, I did get a part in it, and I am understudy to the part I wanted. So now the lead girl (aka the principal's daughter) must break her leg…or BOTH! Mwahahahahaha! Yeah, I won't do that, but still. Wistful sigh.

A/N 2: "Feeling This" is a blink-182 song. FYI. I spent my entire summer with it on repeat. Yeah, I'm not a dork. (Sarcasm).

Disclaimer: As per usual, I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd get the lead in the play, because Xavier doesn't have a daughter to get favored. GRRR. Wait, does he? Damn, I wish I knew what I was actually talking about more than .3 of the time.

Chapter Fourteen: Keep It Together

**New York, Present Day**

Gwen lifted her pencil up from her English journal, and, chewing on her eraser, peeked up through her hair to get a glimpse of Scott Summers, her teacher and Jean Grey's previous fiancé, leaning over his desk in a wilted, depressed manner. She looked down at what he was staring at, thinking it may have been some papers or whatever, but there was nothing there. He was simply staring at nothing.

Gwen winced. He had been like that for almost a year, ever since Jean had died. He had lost his previous neat, slightly obsessive manner, in both teaching and his everyday work, when that happened, and on his shoddier days, he had resorted to having the children write in their journals for most of the class.

It appeared to be one of those days. Gwen and her classmates had been writing for the past forty minutes, continually stopping to glare at the clock on the wall over Scott's desk. They had about five minutes left before their next class, which, Gwen realized with an inward groan, was detention. Which meant a class with Kurt, who was currently in almost the same state as Scott, which meant another hour of sitting and doing nothing. She subconsciously stretched her legs under her desk, completely aware of a cramp already growing in her calf.

Jubilee, sitting next to her, was pausing and staring off into space, mouth slightly open. Gwen nudged her and she woke up, startled.

Gwen sighed, and instead of writing, moved her pencil quickly over her paper, never letting the lead and the book touch, hoping no one would realize that she was just pretending, and with her left hand, she reached into her small purse that she carried around during the school day, sifted through an assortment of lipsticks and pens, until her hand clenched around a small piece of folded paper.

Her previous class had been History with Storm, who was also preoccupied with something or other. As Gwen was leaving, Her teacher had called her up to her desk, ripped off a piece of an old assignment sheet, scribbled on it quickly, and told her to give it to Kurt at detention, with a serious, "Don't read it, Gwen," accompanying it.

Gwen was surprised that she had lasted so long without looking at it. Forty-five minutes, her new record, she grinned to herself, and opened it up. It was smeared with lead filings from her purse, and she brushed them off, using her leg to keep it steady. Still moving her right hand, she stared down at the note:

Kurt- 

I need to talk with you. Meet me at my garden at 5 today. Don't try to avoid me anymore. Gwen, stop reading this.

_-Storm_

Gwen frowned. Kurt had been avoiding Storm? She hadn't noticed, since Kurt hadn't been talking to anyone over the weekend. Gwen wondered if it had anything to do with his mysterious black eye. She had, of course, asked him about it that morning at breakfast, but he'd just muttered something about walking into a door. This had led to a strong temptation to read his mind and find out what the hell was actually going on, but she remembered her promise to him. And, unlike most other times, she was really going to stick to it, since it was Kurt.

She nudged Jubileewith her elbow. When her friend turned around, Gwen slid the note across the table, making sure to keep it hidden from Scott, and let her read it.

Jubilee looked a bit surprised, and mouthed, "Huh?" Gwen nodded, and carefully slipped the note back into her purse. Then, still watching Scott (who hadn't moved anyways), she slowly cleared her mind. 

She had used her telepathy with other people several times before, but it still felt like a total roller coaster ride every time. She had to be extremely careful, make sure her thoughts didn't get mixed in with the other person's, or there'd be trouble. If that went on too long, she could some damage. So she made a small window between their minds, using that to project her thoughts and allowing the other person to let their own thoughts in as well. It seemed simple, but it took extreme concentration and patience, as she sorted out her thoughts. If she didn't, she could be susceptible to the other person's memories, which was something she did not like to do, as she had told Storm just a few days before.

Gwen made sure to keep her face straight during the entire process, so as not to arouse any of Scott's suspicions, and finally made a connection to Jubilee's mind, then opened up the window.

_Want to go to the garden with me tonight? Like, at five?_ she projected through it.

"Ow, dude, get your elbow out of my face," Jubilee muttered as they squirmed against the garden fence. Jubilee was tall enough to just peek over the top of it, but Gwen was shorter, and was on Jubilee piggyback-style. From her uncomfortable perch, she could see Kurt sitting, slumped over, on the bench near the fence parallel to the girls and Storm standing over him, looking concerned.

Gwen carefully moved her elbow and whispered, "What are they saying?"

"I can't hear, stop talking for a moment." Jubilee pursed her lips in concentration.

Gwen stopped moving, until everything was quiet, and she could hear Storm's contralto voice more easily.

"...and you look completely sick. You've been in your room for the past two days, and I think it has something to do with your black eye." She sat down on the bench next to him, and tentatively put her hand on his shoulder. He didn't look up.

"Kurt," she said, more quietly, and Gwen strained to hear her, "I'm worried about you."

"There's nothing wrong with me, Ororo," Kurt's voice suddenly said, crisp and loud in stark contrast to Storm's hushed tone. "I'm _fine_."

Gwen heard something creeping into his speech, something she had rarely heard before from him. Once, when some sleazy guy had tried to French her when she was fourteen, Kurt had gotten so pissed off he'd smacked him back to the Stone Age, but that was the only time she'd seen him mad.

Now she could hear that edge again, and it was scaring her. Kurt didn't get angry easily, and she figured that it wasn't Storm who was making him like that.

"There _is_ something wrong. I have never seen you like this," Storm told him, taking her hand away and putting it in her own lap. "Kurt, I hate it. I know Gwen's upset about all of this, too. She was completely distracted in class this morning-"

"She's _always_ distracted. There's nothing wrong," Kurt stood up angrily, facing Storm. She tilted her face up to him, and Gwen realized she could obviously hear the edge, too.

"Kurt-" Storm started, then tried again. "Wh- Please, Kurt, what's wrong?"

Gwen could hear tears in her voice, but before she could let that sink in, Kurt spoke again.

"There's nothing wrong, Ororo!" he yelled, his voice loud. "Just- just- _don't_! Leave me alone!" He turned on heel, facing Gwen and Jubilee's direction, and stormed out through the gate, right past the tree they were hiding behind, but he didn't seem to notice them. Gwen, in her surprise and fear, fell off of Jubilee's back and landed square on her ass, but she didn't yell in pain, so as not to let the two adults know they were listening in.

She heard Kurt stomp back to the mansion and slam the door behind him. No one moved, until Gwen managed to shake herself out of her startled reverie and stand up quietly to see Storm.

She was sitting on the bench, mouth agape in shock, not moving at all. Gwen saw that she looked sad, very much so, and she gazed at Jubilee in amazedly, who returned the stare.

Everyone remained in their positions for a long time, until the silence was interrupted by Storm making a sort of noise, a cross between and sigh and a sob. She stood up, and ran to the gate with her hands over her face, hunched over. She didn't see the girls either, as she dashed into the mansion, her white hair flying over her shoulder.

Gwen sank to the ground; hand over her mouth. She wiped sweat from her upper lip, then put her hand in her lap.

"Damn," she muttered. Jubilee sat down next to her.

"You got that right, Gwennie," she said. "Totally weird."

"What now? Kurt actually yelled at someone. He yelled at _Storm_. This is fully an out of body experience." She stood up. "Why the hell is Kurt in such a freaking bad mood? And it's not Storm who's getting the bad end of this. My dad's coming on Friday, and he and Kurt haven't EVER EVEN SPOKEN."

Gwen rubbed her eyes. What, she thought, is the matter? What was wrong?

How was she going to fix all of it?

A/N: Oh my god, the next chapter's gonna be good! Ta!


	15. Chapter 15: Drive Away

A/N: Ugh, I'm sick. I ate like a pig tonight, decided to drink a ton of water, and spent the next hour puking it all back up. It was gross.

Course, everyone could care less.

A/N 2: "Keep It Together" is a Madonna song. She was so cool, even though she's old now.

Disclaimer: I, as usual, do not own the X-Men. I wish I did, cuz then I'd...hang on, gotta puke.

That's better. If I owned the X-Men I'd have them wait on me hand and foot during my time of need.

Chapter Fifteen: Drive Away

Germany, 1986 

Kurt sat against the wall of the upstairs floor, near the staircase, curling his arms and tail around his knees. Caroline and Emmett were downstairs, and he could hardly believe that it was happening. After years of enduring her taunts and torments, she was actually leaving. She and her fiancé had packed up all of her belongings, save the ones in Kurt's room, shipped it to his parent's large mansion in America (he had picked up all of this by listening carefully), and tomorrow, finally, finally, they were leaving. There'd be an ocean between them, the entirety of the Atlantic to separate them. She wouldn't ever hurt him again.

But since they had been at the house for the past few days, he hadn't eaten anything for a while. Kurt felt dizzy and weak, although he knew it would be worth it. Maybe he would stay in the house for a while, until the family who had bought it moved in. From then on he wasn't sure, but he didn't care. He ran his fingers over the light scar on his forearm he had gotten when he was four – he could still remember that afternoon - and smiled. No more.

Kurt suddenly felt a strong wave of shakiness pass through his head, and he moaned softly. He was waiting until he heard Caroline and Emmett come up the stairs to her room to get something to eat, but it was taking a lot longer than he expected.

"Mmnnnnn," he murmured, and gently let himself rest on the floor, right side down and his back against the wall. Another wave hit him, and he gritted his teeth in pain. His stomach felt like it was doubling up on itself. He closed his eyes, trying anything to take his mind off it.

* * *

It was happening. It was actually happening. Caroline squirmed in her seat, careful not to let her wine spill over the edge of her glass. She felt Emmett put his arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze to silence her movement. She stopped budging, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

"I'm so excited," she whispered, grabbing his free hand and squeezing it.

"Me too," he muttered into her ear, squeezing back and planting a soft kiss against her cheek.

"Tell me again," she said, sitting up and grinning at Emmett. He groaned.

"No, Carrie," he replied, sitting up as well and laughing.

She set her wine on the table beside her and tucked her knees under her legs, facing him.

"Please?"

He sighed. "1005 Vandram Street, New York, New York."

Caroline laughed and hugged him. "Home," she giggled, nuzzling his neck. "It'll be wonderful."

He laughed too, and kissed her on the mouth, quickly. She smiled at him, and kissed him back. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

They remained like that, until Caroline's lips were buzzing and numb with exhilaration. When she was with Emmett, everything was perfect.

"You wanna-" she paused, grinning, and nodded her head in the direction of her bedroom.

He grinned back.

* * *

Kurt was floating fast between reality and the unconscious, feeling nauseated. He couldn't register anything; it moved before he could get a hold on it.

So when he heard footsteps on the stairs, it hovered in his mind for a few seconds too long before fear finally gripped him.

They were coming.

Kurt jumped up, feeling sickness ring through his head as hard as possible. His door was close, and he grabbed the knob and pushed it open, stumbling in. The footsteps were at the top of the staircase now, and he slammed the door shut, knowing as he did that he was dead.

He sank down against the wall, running his hands through his hair and sobbing once, dryly. He could hear Emmett's voice.

"Carrie – who's that?"

"Emmett, no, don't, there's no one-"

"I saw the door close."

"Emmett, NO!"

The door was pushed open roughly, and Kurt pressed his head against his knees. He could hear Emmett breathing loudly, with Caroline shifting around behind him. She broke the silence, finally.

"Emmett, he's- I never wanted him here in the first place, Raven just brought him and-"

Emmett turned around. "Is that a mutant?"

Kurt felt the corners of his mouth press down, as he held back frightened tears.

"Caroline, what are you doing wi- what's happening?" He suddenly sounded confused and scared. Kurt glanced up, forehead wrinkling with dread.

Her hair stuck out from all sides, as if someone had rubbed a balloon all over her head, and her eyes seemed to crackle with electricity. She looked scared, very much so, and as she moved, the air sputtered with energy.

"Oh my God," she said, staring at her hands, wincing as they were shocked. "What- what-" She glanced up, and the small lit light bulb in the lamp on the table beside the bed grew impossibly bright, then exploded. A few pieces of glass hit Kurt, but only one scratched him. He screamed from surprise, though.

Caroline's eyes were wide, as were Emmett's. "What's happening?"

He stared at her, then said accusingly: "You're a mutant, too!"

"Emmett, no, no, I don't know what it is, but-"

"This place- how many more of you are there?" He sounded disgusted, and Kurt began to whimper quietly.

"Emmett-"

"Freak."

With that final word, Emmett began to walk out of the room, shoving past Caroline and not even stopping as he received a shock that Kurt could hear from the other side of the room. "FREAK. Don't follow me. Leave me alone."

"Emmett!" Caroline began to run after him, her hair calming down a bit.

* * *

Kurt couldn't hear much after that, but he knew that Emmett had left for good when Caroline reappeared in his doorway, no longer electrified. She only looked like she was burning with anger. Her focus was all on Kurt.

She walked over to where he was huddled in his little ball, and held up a key, grinning maliciously.

"Game's up, freak. You made me lose Emmett. Now you're gonna pay."

She gripped his arm and pulled him up so hard that he jerked to the side, but he managed to stand up straight. He looked sadly at Caroline, who was slipping the mysterious key into her dress pocket.

"You ready?"

Kurt started to cry.

A/N: UH-OH! What's gonna happen? Stayed tuned, my little minions!

Oh yeah, and review. I've been forgetting to remind people.


	16. Chapter 16: Wake Up

A/N: Ooh, four reviews for one chapter! That was totally exciting! Thanks, y'all!

Watching American Idol. Wow, these people suck. No offense to them.

A/N 2: "Drive Away" is by the All-American Rejects. I luv dem!

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd take the Blackbird to wherever the American Idol auditions were being held, yell at all the contestants, and throw Hershey's Kisses at them, just for the hell of it.

Chapter Fifteen: Wake Up

**New York, Present Day**

Gwen had stayed up the previous two nights, trying to find a logical connection between everything that had happened since Friday, but she had drawn a blank. After barely staying awake through all of her classes those days (except for German, as Kurt had stayed in his room supposedly sick both days. It had been replaced by a study hall, and as she napped in a corner, she hoped she hadn't jinxed it and been responsible), the idea of collapsing on her bed seemed like heaven.

It was six-thirty at night, and everyone in the TV room had been shocked when she'd left a rerun of Family Guy to go to sleep. She had replied with a drowsy "Whurt-erver," not really caring about doing anything but seeing the inside of her eyelids.

Gwen began to pull off her t-shirt when she got to her empty room, but exhaustion pulled her like a magnet to her bed, and she gave up trying to resist, as she fell on her back across the sheets lazily.

"Stupid everyone," she murmured, burrowing the back of her head into her pillow and just managing to cover herself with her blankets. "Why do they have to be all complic..."

She fell asleep.

_Gwen gripped the edges of her chair, pulling herself back from the sight in front of her in horror. It was a tiny puddle of blood, but lying in it was a torn picture of Kurt, only he was a child, and the paper was frayed wet red. In it, he was screaming silently. She hated it. Go away, she told it, go away, leave me alone. She covered her eyes and yelled at it. When she opened them again, she was happy to see that the picture had gone away, but not for long. Instead there was Kurt, but it was the one she remembered from his childhood memories. He couldn't have been older than eight. Gwen screamed and turned her head._

_No, no, he cried, and held up his hands. Please no, that hurts. Gwen looked at him, and saw that tears were streaked down his face. His eye was swollen. She was so, so deathly scared._

_Who did that? she asked, pointing to his bruised face. He started sobbing and fell to his facedown on his knees, like he was bowing. His skinny little shoulders bobbed up and down as he bawled. She did, she did, he murmured, hiccupping._

_Gwen was still scared of his marred eye and his tears, but she bent down to his level and gently tapped his head on the crown. He looked up at her, timidly, lip quivering. Her heart melted. Poor, poor baby, she said, stroking his fuzzy cheek. Why are you alone?_

_He started to cry again. Raven left me, he said, but the other one didn't. She hates me, though. Like this, and he pointed at his eye._

_Gwen stood him up, and brushed him off. She shouldn't do that, she told him, and he whimpered in agreement._

_She makes me stay alone, he informed her, wiping away tears. She is the only person around, but I'm even lonelier with her. I stay in the house all the time, in my room. I hate my room._

_You don't have to go back, then, Gwen told him, pulling him closer to where she was sitting. Don't worry about her anymore; I'll make her go away. I promise._

_Really?_

_I'll take care of you, she said, and pulled him in for a hug. He smelled like antiseptic, but he was warm and small._

Gwen woke up in a cold sweat, breathing hard. She was so uncomfortable, twisted up in her sheets. She'd been hugging the edge of her mattress.

She pulled herself from her tangle of bed and limbs, sliding down to the floor and using a pillow to dab away the freezing drench she was covered in.

"I'm an idiot," she tittered to herself, into the cloth case. "I'm such a freaking idiot."

Caroline at the mansion WAS Caroline from Kurt's nightmare of a childhood. How could she not have seen that? They both were making him stay in his room, making him lonely.

And God...seeing Kurt as a little boy had reminded him of his mother, Raven. He had mentioned her in her dream. Gwen remembered a tall, blonde woman. The same one that had been with John at the mall.

She had TALKED about him. She knew who he was. And Gwen knew what she looked like when she wasn't blonde. Then, she was Mystique the shape -shifter, the blue-skinned woman that Rogue had told her about.

Kurt's Raven had been in disguise the entire time she was his mother. Gwen shivered. How creepy, to not even know what your mother was in real life, although she didn't know either. But that was different.

Mystique was Kurt's mom. Gwen had fully talked to Kurt's mom. Kurt's mom had spent the majority of his life anywhere but with him.

And what the hell was the thing with Caroline? Gwen had promised to get rid of her, even if it just was a dream. What was she going to do about that?

She needed a cup of tea.

* * *

Gwen stumbled down the dark hallway to the kitchen, wincing as the bright light hit her eyes from under the door crack. She groped for the handle, rubbing sleep away, and pushed open the door.

Someone was already in there, and as she adjusted to the light, she made out Storm's hair, standing by the stove.

"Hey, Storm," she mumbled, walking over to the cupboard. "Is the water on?"

"Why are you awake so late? Yes, it's on. Get a cup," she sighed, and Gwen realized that she disapproved of the nighttime wanderings, but she'd still make her some tea. She smiled.

"Thanks. Couldn't sleep." Gwen sat down at the table, the one she and – damn it - Caroline had been fighting around the previous Saturday and cradled her head in her hands. "What time is it?"

"Twelve forty-five."

"AM or PM?"

Storm snorted. "Guess."

"Have you talked to Kurt lately?" She lifted her head as she spoke.

Storm jerked around from the kettle. "What?"

"Kurt. You know him? Blue, has a tail, yellow eyes, relatively on the short end of the merry sunshine scale at the moment-"

"I haven't seen him." Storm turned back around. "He's been sick."

"I don't believe that," Gwen told her. She let that sink in, then said: "Look, I know you guys had a fight and he yelled at you, but trust me, it wasn't personal." She was suddenly aware of how sad she just sounded.

Storm looked up at the wall in front of her, and then slowly faced Gwen. "Is- is something wrong?"

Gwen sighed. "Um-hmm," she said, staring at the floor.

"What is it? Are you okay?"

Gwen didn't answer, but instead curled her knees up to her chin, just like Kurt did, and rested her head on them.

"That bad, Gwen?"

"You have no idea."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, but- oh, I don't know."

Storm thought for a moment, then strolled over to Gwen and hugged her curled form. Without a second notion, she opened up her arms and hugged back. She felt like...well, probably maternal. She groaned inwardly. Stupid cliche. Even so, they stayed like that for a moment, but suddenly let go, as Gwen gasped and jumped off the chair, leaving Storm startled.

"That's it!" she screamed, running to the door. "Thanks, Storm!"

"What did I do?" she asked, looking confused. Gwen ignored her.

"Of course I'll need the computer tomorrow, but that won't be a problem..." she crashed out of the room, still yelling.

"What about your tea?" Storm called after her. Gwen stopped her crazy dash, and went back, poking her head through the door crack.

"Never mind. I need some sleep, I think." And she tore off.

A/N: What's going to happen! Gasp!

Okay, Gwen FINALLY got it. Took her long enough, didn't it? Forgive me, it's crucial to the plot.

Now go gimme a review, it keeps me stable for a few more precious hours.


	17. Chapter 17: Break Away

A/N: Hey, y'all. Nothing noteworthy to report. On with the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd do interesting things all the time, instead of just sitting around. Like I'm doing now.

Chapter Seventeen: Break Away

Germany, 1986

Kurt was curled up in pain, tail securely tucked around his legs. He shivered, whimpering, and burrowed himself even further under the covers of his bed. His arm felt like it was burning, and he started to lick it, tasting salty blood in his mouth.

Kurt ached everywhere.

Caroline was downstairs, on the phone, which he was glad for, even if it was only for a half hour or so. But he knew it would only be a matter of time before she unlocked his door with her key – where had she gotten that, anyways? – and came back in.

When she had come back just after Emmett had left, she had given Kurt what he was sure was the worst beating of his life. She'd tossed him into a corner, and kept him there for the longest time, until he had finally screamed himself out, hating her. She had thrown him into his bed, and slammed the door as she left.

When she had come back, Kurt braced himself, expecting something horrible. It wasn't like that, though. She hadn't laid a finger on him. She'd just talked. But, oh, the things she had said...

It was like every single insult; every single degrading thing, and every single word that made Kurt want to die had all been said to him right then. When Caroline had finished and left, he lay under his covers, head covered by his pillow, and sobbed.

Since then, she had kept coming upstairs, sometimes to hit him, and sometimes to talk. He wasn't sure which he hated more – they were both painful beyond anything he'd ever experienced.

Kurt paused in his licking, and stared at the shape cut on his arm. It hurt so much.

He hated what had come with it, what she had told him as she did it.

Right before it happened, he had come out from under his blankets about an hour after she had left his room again, sniffling and wiping his streaming eyes. He had known it would only be a matter of time before she came back in, and when he heard the key being stuck in the lock on his door, he had turned on his side to face the wall, not wanting to look at her.

Kurt heard her walk up to the bed, then stop. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, and when she grabbed his arm and pulled him over to face her, he was only more scared and confused.

Caroline was holding the switchblade that he remembered from so long ago, and she was grinning. Kurt gasped, and pulled the covers up closer to his face, as a last resort to keep himself safe.

"No. Please, please no. Please don't hurt me." He whimpered.

Her smile disappeared. "I've just gotten off the phone with the bank. Emmett took everything from our account. I have nothing left. I have to stay in this hellhole of a house." She pointed the tip of the blade at him menacingly. "Guess we're both stuck here, aren't we?" She sat on the edge of the bed. "Listen, you, this is all your fault. I am sick of you, with your crying and your clinginess. Why haven't you left? Do you have anything better to do than ruin my life? I wish you'd go back to whatever hell you came from and leave everyone else alone."

Kurt felt a few fresh tears pop up in his eyes. There was nothing he could say. He just shifted farther back from her, and as he did, he felt one of his books that he kept in his bed fall out from the blankets onto the floor at the place where he used to sleep.

Caroline jumped. The noise had surprised her. She stood up, walked around to the where the book had fallen, picked it up, and held it for Kurt to see.

It was one of his favorites, _Religious Symbols from Around the World._ He especially liked the ones that the Archangel Gabriel (A/N: Ooh, bet you can't tell where this is going...think, "movie.") had made. But now Caroline was opening it, and the spine had been split to that page that he kept rereading. She looked at it, then at Kurt, and began laughing.

Kurt shuddered, realizing as she looked at the book and at the knife in her hand that she was getting an idea.

This was proven later when Caroline, sneering, sat on his stomach, gripping his left arm so he couldn't move it, and said, "Pride...for thinking you're worth something." She then moved the tip of the blade slowly, right over his old cut. Kurt screamed; it was too much hurt all at once. He tried to pull away, desperately, but she pulled back.

"I probably won't make a mistake if you quit squirming. You want this to hurt even more?"

When she had finished copying the symbol in the book onto his skin, he had been reduced to nothing but a quivery, shaky little thing who wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else other than that room.

But it wouldn't happen, ever, Kurt thought sadly as Caroline got up off of him, wiping the blade on the covers, leaving a streak of blood on the pattern. He'd be stuck there forever.

He thought about this, then continued licking the new cut, not bothering to even get up to clean it. What did it matter? It'd always be like this, now.

He breathed gently, and swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the salty blood in his throat. He was so tired, it had been three days since he had had something to eat, and he just wanted someone to make Caroline leave him alone.

Maybe he could get a few moments of rest from everything, if he tried hard enough. He wrapped a blanket around his forearm, and laid his head against his pillow, shutting his aching eyelids.

"Mmmnn," he murmured. He was so warm.

* * *

Kurt jumped awake as he heard the door slam open, heart beating fast. How long had he been sleeping? It felt like two minutes. He tried to focus his vision, and saw Caroline settling on the edge of the bed again. He was happy to see that she had no knife.

But that meant...

No, no, no, she's talking, he thought, frightened.

She stared into his eyes, cold blue ice, and didn't speak for a few moments. Then:

"You ever loved someone?"

Raven popped into his head instantly, but he didn't say anything.

Caroline continued. "I loved Emmett, and you made me lose him." She leaned in closer. "You thinking about your mother?"

Kurt stared back at her, not knowing whether he should answer, but eventually he nodded. "Un-hum."

She laughed, and then slapped his cheek, sending stings of hate through his face. "You wanna know something?"

Kurt gasped in pain, and glanced over to the door. Caroline had left it open. Maybe...

He jumped up, and was about to swing his legs out from his blankets when she knocked her hand into his chest, pushing him back onto the mattress.

"Trying to break out?" She snorted, and then swung herself over him so she straddled his body, preventing any escape. "Your mother left because of that. You're too much to put up with. She hated you."

Kurt struggled to get out, but she was too heavy. Instead, he winced inwardly at her words. They hurt so much.

"N-no, she didn't. She didn't," he stammered out. "Be- before she left she told me-" he shivered. "She told me she loved me."

Caroline pushed down harder on him. "She told you that so you'd leave her alone and she could get away without having to deal with you. Same thing as before."

Kurt let out a dry sob. "No, she did love me. She did."

"She hated you. She just wanted you to leave her alone."

"No, she d- didn't."

"If she loved you, why did she leave, then?"

"Because- erm, because..."

Caroline's idea made perfect sense. Raven had never loved him. She had only told him that so he wouldn't bother her.

He swore he could actually feel his heart ripping in half, at that moment. But as he noticed that pain, his chest, his arms, his legs followed, and his head...it felt like he was being sucked away. There was a huge, blinding ray of agony going through him, and Kurt suddenly realized that it wasn't normal; it wasn't what he'd expected to feel. He didn't know what was happening, and he began to panic.

The sucking intensified, and suddenly-

_BAMF!_

Kurt had been pulled through a whirling, dark place. Caroline's weight was gone, as was the rest of his surroundings. He was totally alone and empty. He didn't like the feeling, at all.

But as soon as it started, Kurt was back in the real world. Only instead of on his bed, he had been dropped near the door of his room, on the floor. He looked up, and saw Caroline kneeling on the bed, in a cloud of smoke, staring at him, amazed.

Kurt did not know what had just happened, and he did not know why. But the door was open, and he had the chance to escape from Caroline and everything that came with her forever.

He stood up, shook his head to get his bearings, and ran as fast as he could.

Outside of the house, the dead grass was heavy with raindrops from the day's earlier rain, and the air smelled fresh and new from it. Kurt ran, still hearing Caroline's angry shouts behind him in the house, but he knew she wouldn't be able to see him if he got to the trees in time.

As he ran past the branches he'd played on so many times before, he felt relief wash over his body. He had gotten away. He had gotten away!

Still, he moved quickly.

When the air in his lungs finally burned him to a stop, he was in the middle of an unfamiliar forest. Kurt looked around, and realized that he had nowhere to go, no one to look after him. He sank to the ground, shaking with exhaustion and sadness.

"Raven," he said quietly, and felt himself begin to cry again. He pressed his face to his knees, sobbing, and stayed like that for a while. He missed her so much, but she probably didn't miss him.

When his heart rate had slowed down, he stood up again, still blinded by tears. Kurt was scared, his arm throbbed, and he had been feeling nauseous ever since he had gone through that other place and gotten out from under Caroline.

Maybe if he ran he could ignore it all. It wouldn't be there, it would just...go away.

Kurt began to jog in the same direction, unsure of both himself and where he was going.

But it had to be better than where he had come from, he thought, staring in the direction of his new cut. There was no way it couldn't.

A/N: Yeeeaaah, sooo...Kurt's first movie scar. What did you think? Review, please!

A/N2: I know in chapter four it says he didn't leave the house till he was thirteen, but bear with me...I'm going to put in a METAPHOR later on! Praise my writing skills! Yeehah!


	18. Chapter 18: As Long as You're Mine

A/N: Oh gosh, I'm watching Anastasia (as in the Disney movie). Sad, sad, life.

A/N 2: "Break Away" is a Kelly Clarkson song (oh, shut up).

Disclaimer: As usual, I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I wouldn't be late to school every day (since I'd live at the school...duh).

Chapter Eighteen: As Long as You're Mine

**New York, Present Day**

Gwen felt the keys jingling in her pocket, and shivered at the prospect of what she was about to do. If she was caught, she would definitely get in trouble. Again.

She stood in the garage of the mansion, searching around for..._yes_.

She'd always been totally jealous of Storm's car. It was a sweet silver little convertible, that she had used to take the girls to the mall the previous Saturday, but Gwen wasn't allowed to touch it.

This, however, constituted a rule-breaking.

Gwen had IM'ed John that morning like they had planned, asking him to bring Mystique and meet her at the store where they had seen each other that week.

**John**: why?

he had asked.

**Brdwygrrl34:** thats a stupid im address, u realize that right? just bring her tonite at 5 and u will see

Gwen had replied.

Now she was driving in Storm's car, along the road into the nearest town (with the convertible top down, of course) and shaking her hair away from her face. She had spent an hour fixing it just before, as she had wanted to at least look presentable.

As she had been leaving, Caroline had appeared in the hallway in front of her. When she saw Gwen, she hadn't done anything. She had just stood there. It made Gwen so angry, seeing her there. How was it fair that she get to roam around freely, while Kurt hid in his room? She thought for a moment about this, then decided to speak.

"I know what kind of person you are," she told her, angrily tossing her new lip-gloss into her clutch.

Caroline scoffed and put her hands on her hips. "What do you mean?"

"Listen, lady," Gwen stated, standing up straighter and throwing back her shoulders, trying to pretend she was braver than she really felt. "You're not a nice person. In fact, I think you're evil. But the problem is, I can't do anything about it. But I know someone who can." She'd then turned on heel and left, leaving Caroline standing in the hallway by herself.

The wind whipped at Gwen's head as she rode down the street, and she sighed. It was too dry to provide any relief from the heat, but it gave her comfort from the thoughts pounding in her head.

Poor, poor Kurt.

* * *

"...so why exactly do I have to go?" Mystique asked, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Because she's insane." Up, down.

"Shut UP, John. It's because...because it's just important. If you came tomorrow, you'd see why."

"I'm not going just because someone told me to. Why?"

Gwen shook her head in a frustrated manner. "Cuz...cuz...oh, fine. This isn't something I should be telling you, but here goes. You mentioned Kurt before, and at first I thought it was because of when you two met like a year ago. But it's not."

She crossed her arms and hunched over. "He's...he's your, um, son."

Mystique froze. Even John stopped clicking his lighter lid in surprise. Gwen didn't talk.

Finally someone spoke. "Raven, what the hell?" Up, down.

"Plus there's something else, Mystique. See-"

"Kurt? Did-" she cleared her throat. "Did he say something about me to make you come here? Does he know who I am? I thought he didn't realize who I was last year, but did-"

"No, otherwise he'd probably have karate chopped you in the head last year. Lucky for you. Okay, like I was saying, there's more to this meeting than just that. Remember Caroline?"

Gwen could see her eyebrows pop up. "What about her?"

"She's at the mansion, too." She smiled, although there was no reason to. "Did you know that she has the mutant ability to control electricity?"

Mystique clearly had no idea, as in response to this news she had made a sort of choking noise and started coughing loudly to cover it up.

"I didn't think so. So she's there, and I think you should know that-" Gwen paused. This really was something Kurt and Mystique should talk about. "Well, actually, scratch that. Look, if you want to know what this is all about, come to the mansion tomorrow. My dad's coming – hey, wait, if you haven't remarried, that makes you my half grandma...I didn't think of that – and I think we need to talk. As a _family_." She put the emphasis on that last word.

Mystique stiffened, and stared down at Gwen. In her eyes, there was no trace of the haughtiness or indifference she had seen when she first met her. Now, there was only fear. She could sense heavy waves of hesitance coming from her, and, to her shock, she felt a bit sorry for her. She really did not have a clue what had happened back in Germany.

Moments later, Mystique shook her blond hair. "Okay. Okay, I'll come."

Gwen smiled at her. "Great. Now come over tomorrow, anytime after four, cuz then my dad'll be there too." She turned to John. "You don't have to come, even if you're her appointed bodyguard."

He frowned. "I'm not her-"

"Bye! Thank you!" Before she could let her nervousness get the better of her, she flung a hug over him, then Mystique, ignoring the "Gaah (1) !" she gave as she did it. They both looked shocked.

She grinned. "I really mean it. Thanks."

Gwen turned from them, and started jogging back down the escalator.

It was a few seconds before she realized that it was going up.

* * *

**Friday morning**

Bags were packed, and chipper goodbyes were being said. The children of the mansion who still had families were about to be picked up by their parents for the summer. Everyone was out on the front lawn, hugging and laughing and telling each other, "Write me!"

Well, almost everyone.

Kurt lay curled up against his windowsill, staring down at all of the kids sadly. He would have given anything to be able to go outside and say goodbye, but he couldn't. Imagine if one of the parents saw him.

Besides, he could see Storm there, helping Kitty carry one of her staggeringly heavy bags to an awaiting car. Kurt smiled lightly, despite himself. Katze had too many clothes.

He felt his grin disappear, though, upon seeing Storm hug her student goodbye. He still could not believe that he had yelled at her. She had actually cared, she had wanted to help him, and all he had done was scream at her.

Guilt, fear, and sadness had forced Kurt to retreat to his room. It had only been a few days, but he was really starting to hate it. There was nothing to do besides think and read, and it was getting boring. He wanted to talk to someone, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Caroline was still out there. What if he let slip what she had told him, and she hurt Gwen? Nothing would ever be worth that. Nothing.

Kurt sighed, and walked away from the window, settling on his mattress. His eye still ached, but at least the swelling had gone down.

He lay there for a few moments, thinking about how much he hated Caroline for this, until he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

He sat up immediately, wondering who it could be. He suddenly took back his earlier wish. Talking to someone was too much to deal with. He'd just sit there quietly until the person gave up knocking and left.

"Kurt? Kurt, are you alive?"

It was Gwen. He growled to himself. Perfect. Like she was going to just leave. Her persistence with some things was admirable, but it wasn't welcome right then. He didn't reply.

"Kurt, I know you're there."

Kurt gently slid himself off of the bed, and stood up.

"I just want to tell you that my dad's coming tonight."

He suddenly remembered that Sigfried was supposed to pick Gwen up tonight. No, no, no, then he wouldn't get to talk to her at all.

"Oh, I'm coming," he announced, stumbling over, defeated. He opened the door, and winced at the bright sunlight from the hallway window that came in.

Gwen was smiling, and holding up a sandwich and a cup. "Hi, Kurt." She pushed past him, ignoring his, "Hey, wait!" and set the plate on his bed.

"I figured you'd be hungry, so I made you a sandwich and some green tea." She offered the cup to him, and he took it, patronizingly.

"It's hot, Gwen."

"Yeah, no way, it's tea."

"It's ninety degrees out and you want me to drink boiling tea?"

Gwen nodded earnestly, and gestured at the plate. "I got you some turkey last night. It's fresh."

Kurt, who was about to take a sip for her sake, lowered his cup and glared at her. "That's right, you did. You took Storm's car last night! I saw you pull in!"

Gwen grinned stupidly. "To, uh, get you turkey!"

"Gwen..."

"Oh, fine, I took the car to meet someone, then got you turkey."

"Who did you meet?"

"No one."

Kurt continued staring at her. "You stole your teacher's car to go meet no one?"

"No, it's- oh, you'll see tonight."

"Gwen-"

"I swear it was important! You'll see tonight!" She suddenly snapped her fingers. "Oh, I forgot. I'm telling my dad I'm a telepath tonight."

Kurt frowned. "Really?"

"Uh-huh. See, he's coming later than the other parents today because he's meeting with his publisher, so I figure, if he's in a good mood, maybe he'll be okay with it."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Great strategy, Gwen."

She sighed. "I know. But I'll have to tell him sometime." She glanced up at him. "And I've done some thinking...I'm going to ask him what my mother's name is."

Kurt was surprised. "Wow."

"Yeah. It's gonna be an interesting night." She looked back down at the ground. "You know, with all of us here, and stuff."

Gwen stood up. "I'm going to go say bye to Kitty. See you in a bit, Kurt."

"Okay." He watched her walk over to the door, and leave. While he was closing the door, a thought hit him. He pulled it open again, stuck his head out, and called after Gwen, who for some reason was doing a dance down the hallway.

"Gwen!"

She looked up, stopping in her movement. "Yeah?"

"Tell her I said goodbye, as well."

She smiled. "I will."

1: The exclamation "Gah!" is something from Bridget Jones' Diary, which as you all know is Mystique/Raven's favorite book (despite, in her case, it being from the future...ermm...). I thought it would be fun to include.

A/N: Okay, review, you know the deal. I love all you reviewers! Reviews make me happy!

A/N 2: Oh, you guys! I'm not telling you what's in the next chapter! You have to wait for it! Stay tuned!


	19. Chapter 19: I'll Cover You

A/N: Okay, I would like to take the time out of your busy lives (which I really do thank you for) to tell you about my upcoming fanfiction. Yay!

Basically, it's going to be about Gwen's life...kind of a prequel to A Song for Someone Special. It'll be about what her childhood was like, how she met Kurt, her interactions (pretentious word, I know) with the family Szardos (who are actually going to be introduced in this chapter!), why her codename is Radar, and lots of other good stuff. Since it's her, there won't be as many depressing parts as this one, but I PROMISE some angst and tears. There you go. I think you can expect it sometime in the beginning of summer. I hope you all will read it and enjoy it as much as I undoubtedly will enjoy writing it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd make them take me to Florida for SPRING BREAK! Whooo!

Chapter Nineteen: I'll Cover You

**Germany, 1986**

Margali Szardos had never liked surprises.

She hated being caught off guard, losing control, and occasionally screaming out loud. Unfortunately, all three of those usually came with any kind of shock, good or bad.

So when, in the middle of the night, she and her two children Stefan and Amanda felt something slam into their caravan and let out a small bark, she was not happy.

Margali immediately stood up from her bed, grabbed her robe, and shoved her feet into her nearby boots. In September, it was still warm out, but a growing chill was starting up into the colder months.

"Amanda, Stefan," she said, back turned to them as she dressed. "I want you to stay right he-"

"Mom, what was that?"

"I want to go see!" They had already put on their slippers and were standing by the door eagerly. Stefan had their lit kerosene lamp in his hand.

"No." She walked over to them and held her hand out. "I just need you two to stay here. Give me the lamp, Stefan."

He did, begrudgingly. "Mom, please?"

"Stay here." Without another word, she opened the door and walked into the cool night air, illuminating everything within a two-foot radius with warm yellow light.

The sound had come from the other side of her caravan, and she walked there gingerly, trying not to startle whatever it was that had crashed into them.

"Hello?" she whispered in her gentlest voice. "Come out, come out. Are you a dog? I'm not going to hurt y-"

"Mom, mom!" Amanda's little voice pierced through suddenly behind Margali, and she whirled around. Stefan followed her, trying to grab her shoulder as she ran. "What is it? What is it?"

She gave an annoyed snort. "I thought I told you to stay in the caravan."

Amanda hugged her legs. "What – is – it?" She was grinning in delight; she thought it was a game.

Stefan caught up, finally. "She ran out. I was just chasing her, I promise."

"No you were not. You said that'd be your cover."

"You two!" She pushed her daughter off of her body, and knelt down. "You can come, but don't make any noise or movements. I think it's a dog. You have to be careful around them, because they get really protective and will attack if they think they're being threatened. So be _quiet_."

"Okay." They nodded, and Margali stood straight.

"Follow me. Stay close behind."

On the other side, nothing looked disturbed. There didn't appear to be any sign that a dog – or anything else – was either there or near one of the other caravans in the circus they were with. She frowned.

"Well, that's it. There's nothing here, I don't think...wait a moment."

_Sniff, sniff._

Amanda was clinging to Stefan's jacket in excitement. "What, mom, what is it? Is it a puppy? Did you see a puppy?"

"No, I heard...sniffing, I guess. Maybe there's a dog under here."

She knelt on the ground once again, pulling her skirt out of the way, and set the lamp down to look. The bottom of the caravan was close to the ground, so whatever it was probably was quite small.

At first she could only hear sniffling, but as she trained a mother's eye over the scene the second time, she could see a moving huddle near the left wheel. Only it could not be a dog, because it was wearing clothes. They were torn and dirty, but they belonged to that of a little boy.

Margali inhaled sharply. "Oh my."

"What, mom?" Stefan's serious voice was full of more worry than usual.

"It's okay..." she trailed off before she could explain, and instead wriggled underneath to join the little huddle. "Come here, you. Come-"

Suddenly, a pointed tail flung out and whacked her in the shoulder, leaving a stinging cut in its wake. Margali gasped, from both pain and wonder.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Just come out...er...boy?"

She could see the huddle shaking no.

"Fine." She had dealt with things more stubborn before. Wriggling forward, she reached out, pulled her hands in front of her body, and grabbed it.

Margali could hear it shrieking as she moved backwards with it in her grasp, but she knew it was only from being startled. She was making sure she wasn't hurting it.

When she finally was back outside in the whole, Stefan and Amanda were in awe. "Mom, what is it?"

"Give me the lamp." She held out her free hand, while still managing to keep the thrashing huddle in her arm. "Go to Mary. Tell her I sent you there, and that it's an emergency. Don't come back until I send for you. Stay, and I mean it."

"Mom!" Amanda yelled as Stefan pulled her along. "What is it?"

* * *

In the caravan, there was a steaming tub of water that Margali had brought in. She had inspected the huddle in better light, and, quite honestly, she had no idea what he was...only that he was a boy. His pointed ears and teeth, yellow eyes, dark blue skin, hands and feet, and Devil's tail would make anyone else look like a demon, but this boy...he just looked small. His face was streaked with old and new tears, and his swollen eye showed that he had obviously been on the bad end of some argument or such. It made her heart ache.

She had pulled him inside, much to his displeasure, and set him on her bed, locking the door behind her. Immediately he had curled up on her pillow, tail wrapping around himself for protection, and started sobbing. Try as she might, Margali could not get a word out of him, so she had left briefly to go get a bath for him. He was dirtier than anything she'd ever seen, and the strange cut on his arm probably needed some sort of cleanser.

When she got back, he hadn't moved a bit. Instead, he had pulled the covers over himself, still crying.

Margali had finally managed to get him out, and explained that she was not going to hurt him. All he had done, though, was stare at the floor and whimper.

She had stripped him, then, and put him in the tub with a bar of soap. "Scrub," she told him. "I'm going to get you some other clothes." Discreetly, she dropped his bloody shirt and too-small pants into the trash on her way to Stefan's drawer in their dresser. The garments in it would be too big, but the child needed something good and clean to wear.

She brought over a red shirt only. All of her son's pants were so large that he would trip in them, but at least he would be completely covered.

He was rubbing halfheartedly at his chest, barely moving his hand at all. His eyes were still downcast, but at least he had stopped crying. Margali sighed.

"Okay, give it to me." She held out her hand.

He dropped the soap into her palm, and shut his eyes tight. She knelt down next to him and gently began to clean his back. Sighing, he leaned against the front of the tub, allowing her more room to work. Margali patted his hair, leaving a few bubbles on his head.

"What's your name?"

He glanced up at her without moving his head, then looked back down and murmured something incomprehensible.

"What?"

His shoulders heaved once. "Kurt," he whispered. "Kurt Wagner."

"Oh. Kurt." Margali gave him a gentle smile, although he didn't see it. "That's a nice name. I'm Margali."

His shoulders heaved again. " 'lo." He sniffled.

"Kurt, do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

Kurt shrugged. "No."

"Okay. How old are you?"

"Dunno...birthday's in November...seven."

"Seven." Margali was done with his back. She tipped his head back a little, and he took the hint. He leaned against the reverse side of the tub, leaving his stomach free. She started scrubbing there. "Why are you alone? Where's your family?"

Kurt raised his eyes to her face and his breathing suddenly became labored. "No. No, no," he choked out. He initiated sobbing again, and tried to bring his knees up to his face to hide it, but Margali dragged them down before he could. Instead he pulled his hands out of the water and covered his face, weeping loudly. "No."

"All right. All right. Nothing about your family, I get it." She sighed. He had just stopped. "Erm...what's your favorite...color?" What a stupid question.

Kurt didn't mind, though. He peeked through his fingers a bit. "Green."

"Mine too. How long have you been running?"

"Long time...a few hours."

"You must be tired," she said, pausing to finger a small scar on his chest. What, exactly, had Kurt just come from? "You're very skinny. When did you last eat?"

He let his hands drop from his face. "Three days ago."

Margali winced. "That's not good for you. Here, after we finish washing, I'll give you something to eat and then you can sleep. Does that sound good?"

She saw a little shiver of excitement go through Kurt. "Really?"

"Yes."

He stared at her warily for a few seconds, looking for a trace of a lie, and then nodded. "Okay. Yes." He let his eyes wander back down to the water, which was now filled with bubbles and dirt.

Margali smiled. "Do you mind going under for a minute? I just want to get your hair."

Kurt didn't want to; that was clear. But after consideration, he quickly bobbed below the surface and came back up, gasping. The tears that had just been washed away made a resurface.

"Oh, Kurt, you didn't have to." She was about to begin raking her fingers through his wet hair with the soap, when he spoke.

"Don't like water," he choked out, wiping his cheek, "because once...when I was really young...s- she made me fill the bath up and then she pushed me under and wouldn't let me get out. And I couldn't breath."

Margali froze. "Who? Who did that? Your mother?"

Kurt looked away. "No. My mother - her name was Raven - and I lived with her friend. And her friend's daughter...really didn't like me." He made a small choking sound again, then continued. "But one night my mother left, and her friend died after that, and then it was only me and Caroline there. But I ran away."

Caroline must have been the daughter's name, Margali realized. "Kurt...did Caroline do this?"

"Yes."

"And this?"

"Un-hum."

"Why didn't your mother do anything?"

"She didn't know. Caroline made sure nothing showed. And if she did know-" his voice shrunk substantially in size- "She wouldn't have cared. She didn't love me."

This was heartbreaking to listen to. Margali could not speak. What a poor little boy. But instead of saying something, she simply leaned over and gave him a gentle squeeze, wetting her arms slightly in the process. He looked extremely surprised, but he leaned into her as well, letting his head rest on her uninjured shoulder.

"You're nice," Kurt mumbled into her dress, sounding unsure of himself as he did.

"Thank you. You are too." She patted his back a couple of times, then stood up. "Wash the soap out of your hair, okay?"

Margali knew there was a towel around someplace. She wanted a large, clean one, just for Kurt. When she found it underneath Stefan's bed, she walked over to the tub. He was leaning against the side of it again, eyes closed.

"Come on," she told him. "Stand up."

He did so, sleepily, and she wrapped the towel around him quickly, so as not to leave him bare and wet for long. Exhaustion was taking over him, and fast, so she moved swiftly, rubbing him dry. However, Kurt seemed perfectly content to stay as he was. He simply settled himself against Margali and didn't move. Soon she gave up.

"Fine. Stay in the towel. I'm going to have to bandage that arm, though."

He nodded, eyes drooping shut. She used that moment to carry him over to her bed, and laid him down. "Keep your arm out."

" 'kay."

Kurt didn't mind the antiseptic, which made her job much easier. The strange cut was a bit swollen around the edges. She poked it gently.

"Pride," he murmured softly. "For thinking I'm worth something."

"What?"

"That's what it means." His eyes opened. "That's what she told me."

"Oh. Ohhh." How horrible. Margali shuddered, then began wrapping gauze around his forearm.

When she told him she had finished, he whispered, "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Do you want some bread?"

"Yes, please."

She had a loaf in the cabinet of the caravan, and she fed it to Kurt, piece by piece. He liked it, as far as she could tell, but soon sleep won out over hunger.

Margali watched him there, amazed by all that had happened that night. He was smiling the tiniest bit as he dreamt, and his eyes were shut tightly, the true marks of a child. She didn't know why anyone would hurt him.

They wouldn't anymore, though, she decided, and kissed his forehead. Never again.

A/N: Whoo, y'all! Longest chapter ever, I think! I'll check it out, maybe.

A/N 2: Oh, right, review. By reviewing, you keep the world safe for another few moments! Just kidding. I don't like hurting people. But I do like getting reviews! Shut up, me.

Next chapter: Now who's this Sigfried fellow everyone keeps discussing? Find out soon, by staying tuned! (That rhymes. I rock).


	20. Chapter 20: Confessions Part One

A/N: Wow! Including this chapter, there will only be six more left in the story! It's been fun writing it.

A/N 2: "I'll Cover You" is from Rent (which I just saw, by the way)! Yay!

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd have better hair (since that appears to be mandatory, over there).

Chapter Twenty: Confessions Part One

**New York, Present Day**

He was late, like always.

But it didn't matter, Gwen thought, as she sprinted across the grass to her dad's beat-up car. Sigfried Wagner was one of her favorite people in the world, next to Kurt.

Although she worried that he might not reciprocate the feeling, after that night.

Gwen shrugged that thought off, however, and ran into her father's open arms.

"DAD!"

Sigfried twirled her around, hampered by his bad foot. "Sigfreda!"

He set her down, and she used his outstretched arm to steady herself. "Middle name, Dad."

"Ahh, yes. Gwen. In good health and mood, I presume?" His German accent lightly played against his words, giving him an educated air.

"Yeah...what about you? Is your foot any better?"

"The doctor says that it's almost completely healed. I will have to wait a few more months, of course, before they can remove the bandages, but I do not need my cane anymore, as you can see."

Gwen grinned happily. "That's great! Hey, come in, you're probably really tired." She offered him her hand, and he took it, limping along next to her. "How did the meeting go?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I believe that my book will be available for the general public very soon." Sigfried smiled at her, adjusting his glasses meaningfully.

"That's awesome!" She squeezed his arm affectionately.

Storm was in the little lobby of the mansion, arms crossed tightly as she awaited her student and her father. Gwen knew she hadn't gotten sleep for a little while, but at least she disguised it with a dab of concealer. If one didn't know how she normally carried herself, then they wouldn't see that anything was wrong. However, her shoulders were curled over slightly, and her head hung a little too low.

This was going to be, Gwen thought, as she had done so much that day, a hard night.

When they reached the door, Storm gave a welcoming smile. "You must be the Mr. Wagner we've heard so much about. It's nice to meet you." She held her hand out, and Sigfried shook it, uncontrollably staring at her hair.

Gwen kicked his good leg as subtly as possible. "Dad, stop it," she hissed out quietly. He jumped, looking guilty. "Hey, Ms. Munroe-" she winked, putting a faint emphasis on the formal name – "this is my dad. Dad, this is Ms. Munroe, my history teacher."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Fraulein."

Some polite banter was exchanged between the two adults, and Gwen used that time to peek out of the door. It was almost six, so where was Raven? If she had chickened out, then her entire plan would fall apart.

She was supposed to arrive in her normal disguise, as Raven Wagner. From there, she'd pull Kurt and Caroline in somehow, and keep Storm around, so she'd be able to get an explanation for everything. She just wanted everyone to know the truth, about...well, everything they needed to know.

* * *

"...yeah, this is pretty much where me and my friends hang out if it's the weekend or whatever," Gwen told Sigfried, gesturing over the TV room, which was empty. "Wanna sit? It's a long drive from Boston, I guess you're probably tired."

Her father smiled appreciatively, and followed her suggestion. "Danke."

"Bitte schoen," she replied, slipping comfortable back into her first language. He settled into the cushions, grunting slightly as he raised his foot and rested it on the table. Gwen was about to slide next to him, when her ears finally picked up on the sound she had been searching for all evening long.

A car motor pulling into the yard, but it wasn't one of Scott's. It had a slight knocking sound, and she knew who it belonged to.

"About time!" she screeched, bouncing up and running to the doorway. "Stay here, Dad! I'll be right back."

Storm had clearly heard it as well. She had come out of her classroom, and was walking quickly back to the lobby, but Gwen was faster. She ran past her teacher, muttering, "Excuse me," and burst outside.

She saw Raven coming out of her car on the gravel driveway, and ran over. The older woman looked quite sick, and Gwen hoped it was from nervousness.

"Hey," she said, waving her fingers in salute. Raven glanced up, let out a sigh of anxiety, and slammed her car door shut.

"Hello," she murmured, straightening. "Is your father here yet?"

"Yeah," Gwen said, looking over her shoulder at Storm, who was marching over, looking confused and wary. "Oh, no. Quick. Get insi- aw, dammit."

Storm had come over, ready to ask questions. "Gwen! Who is this?"

She grinned stupidly, trying – and failing – to look innocent. "A...guest."

Her teacher was not amused. "Who, Gwen?"

Gwen turned to Raven. "You wanna say? I'm a little worn out."

Raven paused, staring a bit at her, then turned to Storm and quickly let her blue scales ripple through her pale skin, eyes flitting to yellow and back to dark blue.

Storm jumped, startled, then whispered, "Mystique."

Raven nodded. "I need to see...Kurt. Please."

* * *

"Sit in here," Gwen told Raven, leading her into the TV room. "Dad, move over."

Sigfried did, staring at his stepmother. "Gott in Himmel."

Gwen turned around in the doorway. "Dad, not now!" To Storm: "Watch them, okay? Don't let them talk to each other. Distract them. Wave your car keys at them or something." Then, without looking back, she ran to Kurt's room.

"Effin' labor intensive," she muttered to herself, and began slamming her fist on his door.

* * *

Storm didn't know that much about Kurt and Gwen's family. They had told her a little (he had been adopted into the circus; she had been raised by her father; etcetera), but other than that, nothing. But she could tell by the air of the room that theirs was not a happy dynamic.

Sigfried – Kurt's brother; it was so odd – was glaring at Mystique, who was pretending to ignore it. For someone who had faced so many fights with such carefree boldness, she looked positively scared to death.

When Gwen had returned, she had Kurt and, for some reason, Caroline, with her. She had them both by the arms, and was forcefully struggling against their obvious reluctance.

"You two! I swear – oh, just get in there and sit," she gasped, shoving them in. "Sit! Don't make this harder than it has to be!"

Kurt, as he was moving in, looked up at Storm. She stared back at him, noting that he was wearing his trench coat, something he only did when he was upset. His eye was still slightly swollen and dark.

Storm opened her mouth to say something – she didn't know what, she hadn't seen him for so long, maybe just a simple "Hi," – but before she could, he saw Mystique. It looked like the air had been suddenly sucked out of his lungs; he was so shocked.

"You-" he tried, shuddering a little. "Ra...Ra...Rave-"

"Alright, don't hurt yourself," Gwen told him, coming over. "Just sit on the chair and chill for a minute." He complied, alternating his distressed glances between Storm, Mystique, Caroline (who was standing near the opposite end of the couch, glowering at everyone) and his brother.

"Hello, Caroline," Mystique said.

"Raven, do you know what the hell's going on?" Caroline asked in response. "Who's he?" She gestured at Sigfried, who finally stopped staring at Kurt and turned to her.

"That's my dad," Gwen interrupted, standing in front of them all. "Caroline, you can call him Mr. Wagner. He's his-" she pointed at Kurt – "brother, and her-" she pointed at Mystique – "stepson. Even if they're only five years apart."

Storm, after mulling over that information for a moment, suddenly realized with a jump, if Sigfried was Kurt's half-brother and Mystique's stepson, that Kurt and Mystique were mother and son.

"I should go," she said, shaking her head, horrified and beginning to walk out of the room.

"Nope," Gwen told her, and motioned back to her original spot. " It's a big family reunion. After this whole thing, we're gonna have a picnic outside. But Caroline won't have anyone to do a three-legged race with if you're gone. You're staying." She grinned, and her expression gave her an air of total insanity.

Storm, regardless of what her instincts told her, did what she said. She stood near the area where Kurt's chair and Sigfried's end of the couch met, hoping the former might give some sigh that he was not angry with her anymore – what was wrong? – but he had focused very hard on a spot on the floor, and did not look up.

Okay," Gwen announced, fishing through the pockets of her shorts, "gotta list here of things we need to discuss. I'll just toss them out into the open, and you can pretty much just talk about whatever one you want until we're done." She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and smoothed it so she could read it. "Yeah, so here it is: my mom, my dad's toe, why Kurt lived by himself when he was a kid, Caroline's sucky part in all of this, why I like my hair short, Raven's new look, and...oh, the ink's all smudgy...um, and why we're all here right now. Actually, I'll just tell you guys about Dad's toe now. It got cut off when he was in jail for having a baby with one of his high school students." Gwen twirled her arms and waved at herself. "That was me! The baby, I mean."

"Sigfreda-" Sigfried began, but she cut him off.

"No. I know about it...all of it. I know my mom was fifteen. I know you only saw me for the first year of my life during prison visiting hours. I know about everything that happened. But you know what else? I still love you. So there."

Mystique turned to Sigfried. "Fifteen! That's-"

"Cut it out!" Gwen yelled over her. "We're done with that. Talk about something else. Here's a good one for Raven: why did Kurt live alone when he was a kid?"

At that, Storm automatically stopped watching the scene playing out before her and instead studied Kurt. His head was still down, but his eyes were shut.

"Kurt," she whispered as quietly as possble, reaching out to pat his shoulder. "Are you-"

Quick as a flash, he grabbed her outstretched hand and squeezed it. "Traurig," he murmured, and then let go.

"He wasn't alone," Mystique spoke up defensively. "Rolanda and Caroline-"

"Rolanda," Gwen said, for Storm and Sigfried's benefit, "was Caroline's mother, with whom Raven and Kurt lived after they were kicked out of the Wagner household."

"Yes, but I left him with her. He wasn't alone."

"My mother died two months after you left," Caroline told her, with a disturbing lack of sadness. "She found out I was getting married. Heart attack. Really made Emmett feel welcome." She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Not that that made a difference, I guess. He left me after he found-" she grinned maliciously – "_Kurt_ in my house."

Storm bristled at that. She did not like the way she said Kurt's name, as if it was some stupid joke. Although she had just found out that he had known Caroline before she came to the mansion, she felt that there may have been some sinister reason for why he had kept that to himself.

"So you had him with you?" Mystique asked her, frowning suspiciously at her use of him name. "All that time? I thought you didn't like..." she glanced at Kurt "...doing that sort of thing."

Unbelievable, Storm thought. How could a mother leave her son alone with someone who didn't like him? She had just said so herself!

"I didn't." Caroline tilted her head to the side, clearly aware of what Mystique had just said. "In fact-" she narrowed her eyes meaningfully – "I hated it."

Kurt twisted the end of his tail around his chair leg and seized it securely. It looked like he was in pain.

"Stop it!" Storm cried out. She stared angrily at Caroline. "Stop it. Stop talking. Don't say anything. And why _did_ you leave him alone, Mystique?"

"Mys...tique?" Kurt eyes opened and his head snapped up, and Storm realized what she had just done. "What?"

"Oh, right, I forgot!" Gwen said. "Yeah, she's Mystique."

Kurt glared. "So you got her to come and pretend to be my mother? What could that possibly-"

"No! Not pretend!"

"Oh. Ohhh." He sank back down into the chair and closed his eyes again.

"What," Sigfried demanded, "is going on?"

"Good question, Dad." Gwen sighed. "Raven's a mutant who can change shape. Her codename is Mystique. She works for the Brotherhood. Raven Wagner is her disguise for being Grandpa's wife and Kurt's mom. Now, please answer St- Ms. Monroe's question."

"You're a mutant!"

"Dad, sit down, she's cool. Stay." She sat down on the coffee table. "Okay...go!"

"I-" Mystique began. "I didn't think I was leaving him alone. I swear, Kurt. I just didn't know...how to take care of you. You were better off without me."

Gwen's jaw dropped. "So you thought he'd be okay with a seventeen year old psycho who hated him? Are you completely evil or just stupid?"

"Hey!"

"What were you thinking, then?"

"I...don't know. That day, he was...he just looked so miserable when he was with me, but he...smiled when he was sleeping." She looked down at the floor. "He was so young, I just thought if I left he wouldn't get screwed up by me anymore. He had turned six the month before...so there was still time for me to get away so he'd be fine."

Kurt opened his eyes. "You left in November."

Mystique looked up. "Yes. You remember."

"_Ja._" He frowned. "But I wasn't born in October."

"Yes, you were."

"My birthday's November sixteenth."

"No...it's..." Mystique began muttering to herself and counting on her fingers. "Oh, god."

"This model parent moment brought to you by Raven Wagner," Gwen announced. "Now, even though that was a totally stupid response, you did answer the question, so let's move on." She looked back at her list. "Well, here's why I like my hair short: when I was fourteen, I went to visit Kurt at his circus like I always did when I was in Germany over the summer, his adopted brother went crazy and cut off my hair. I'm just going to leave out the rest cuz it's really, really creepy." She made a face. "I kept it short because I'm proud I survived his insanity."

"How did you know him?" Sigfried asked, jerking his head at Kurt.

"Because when I was eleven, I found out you had a brother. And I know that, because-" she breathed deeply – "I can read and control minds. Dad, I'm a mutant too."

A/N: So...dang...long since I updated, sorry.

Haven't seen X3...is it good?

Stay tuned for the rest of the story!


	21. Chapter 21: Arms Wide Open

A/N: Yesterday I got dragged to The Da Vinci Code with my friend Jenn (remember her?) and her NEW boyfriend (how? How does she keep getting them? I can't even get the one!). He kept glaring at me, so I got out to use the bathroom, then snuck into X3 for half a scene, until I got scared away by a group of morbidly obese people. But I got there just in time to hear that line, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!"

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd get to see X3 legitimately, rather than having to sneak in for five seconds.

Chapter Twenty-One: Arms Wide Open

Germany, 1987

Margali, even though she was exhausted, even though it had been a horrible day that she just wanted to forget about, could not fall asleep. Her eyelids ached from being kept open for so long, but there was something in the back of her mind that was keeping her up, and she couldn't figure out what it possibly could be.

The morning had started out well enough. Nothing really special, but nothing out of the ordinary, either. She had pulled herself out of her bed and into the cool early spring air that had crept into the caravan during the night, gotten dressed, and shaken Stefan, Amanda, and Kurt awake.

Kurt, ever since he had crashed into them the summer before, had stayed at the Circus Gelhaar, working with the older acrobats on flips and other tricks, all of which he was amazingly talented at. During free time or at meals, he would stick closely by Margali's side, quietly observing all of the hustle and bustle around him. He never spoke much, but the others knew that if she could trust him, then they could as well. Kurt was readily accepted into the circus life and family.

That day, however, it became horribly clear that he still was vulnerable to the outside world. Margali had been with her friend Mary that afternoon, helping her repair the holes in the tents, when Amanda had run up to her, her little face bright pink and covered with sweat.

"Mom! Mom!" she screamed, stumbling over the skirt of her dress. "Help!"

Margali dropped the fabric she had been holding and rushed over to her daughter.

"Amanda! What's wrong?" She wiped the child's forehead.

Amanda gasped for breath. "Come quick! Kurt's in trouble!" She began bouncing up and down impatiently.

"Stop, I can't hear you. Where's Kurt?"

"He's- he's...the other boys, they're a lot bigger and I think they're older. Come on!" She began running in the direction she had just come from, and Margali followed her, trying to move as fast as possible.

When Amanda finally stopped, she gulped and pointed to a group of boys that looked to be around their mid teens. They had their backs to her, and were laughing and jeering at something a few feet in front of them. Every now and then they would take a small stone from the ground and lob it at their subject, cheering.

Margali glanced down at Amanda, who had a hint of scared tears in her eyes. "They're throwing rocks at him, Mom! Make them stop!"

She nodded, and then marched angrily over to the teenagers. As she pushed her way between them, making no effort to avoid jabbing her elbows into their ribs, they began to quiet down, realizing that their fun was about to end.

Kurt was kneeling on the ground, using his fingers to balance and remain upright. His breath appeared labored, and he had focused his stare on the new blades of grass pushing up from beneath the earth he was resting on. Margali could see that he wasn't crying, but she wasn't sure if she should be glad about that.

With one swift motion, she bent down and lifted him up into the crook of her arm, where he immediately buried his face. She breathed in deeply as he tightly curled his arms around her neck.

As she faced the boys, she realized she was not exactly sure of what to say to them. Stupid, ignorant bastards...an infinite number of insults begged to be released from her lips, but she held them back with all of her might. Instead of beating them up so they knew what it felt like, like she wanted to, she gave them her sharpest, most intimidating glare, and shoved past them angrily.

Within the hour, everyone had found out what had happened. A few were considering running after the boys and giving them a taste of their own medicine, but it was too late. They were long gone. All they could do was crowd around unhelpfully as Margali put bandages on the nicks and scrapes he had gotten, giving loud voice to all of their complaints about modern society and brutish fantasies. Finally, she could not stand it anymore.

"Everyone! Out!" she shouted, and they knew her well enough to follow her orders. But the peace only lasted for a few minutes, before she had finished with Kurt's wounds.

"Come on, Kurt," she told him, and when he did not answer or move, she grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the meal tent, where it appeared that everyone had made some sort of pact to not talk about him anymore. Every now and then, however, someone would glance over at the pair and shake their head worriedly.

But that night, Margali knew that she was missing something important. Although the idiotic boys and the danger they brought was long gone, there was some other hazard coming. She could not explain how she could recognize this feeling, but it had to be some sort of intuition. It was driving her crazy.

Eventually, it forced her to get out of bed and see if there was anything to drink in their little pantry. Maybe some tea would help her rest.

As Margali moved the containers and glasses around as quietly as she could manage, the small intuition told her to look back at the children's beds. She could see the dark shape of Amanda's small frame hunched up in the top bunk bed, and Stefan's larger one sprawled out across the bottom one. But the little cot Kurt occupied was...empty.

Margali swore loudly, then covered up her mouth in shock. When she saw that she had not woken up her kids, she went over to the door of the caravan, opened it, and began to search for the moon shadow of a familiar tail.

She and Kurt had done this several times now, and she cursed at herself for letting her guard down. He'd get up in the middle of the night, grab Stefan's Swiss Army Knife, and run out into the forest or other surrounding scenery (depending on where the circus had traveled to at the time). Then, while they were still asleep, he'd hurry back into the caravan with a new cut, similar to the one that Caroline girl had given him. It was a horrible habit, but no matter where Stefan hid his blade or how much Margali scolded him, pleaded with him, or tried to stop him, he managed to continue doing it.

Recently he had not been doing it at all, and they had mistakenly decided that he was done with it. But apparently that was not true.

In a few minutes, Margali spotted him moving quickly back to the caravan, rubbing his hand on his face. She could see his other fist clenched tight around something, which she assumed was the knife.

As he entered through the door, he did not see her at first. So when she spoke, he jumped.

"Kurt, give me the knife," she said, holding out her hand.

Kurt looked guilty, his yellow eyes wide open, and he complied without any resistance.

Margali sighed. "Go sit on my bed. Don't wake Stefan and Amanda up."

For the second time that day, she had to bring out her medical kit. She brought it over to where Kurt was and used a match to relight the kerosene lamp, setting it on the mattress gingerly.

"All right. Where is it this time?" she asked, pulling out antiseptic.

Kurt shivered. "Can I have Birdy, Margali?" he inquired in a small voice. Birdy was the little stuffed bear Margali had given him for Christmas, and he couldn't sleep without it.

"Tell me where it is first."

He nodded, and pulled the edge of his shirt up to reveal a sort of crescent shape etched in his skin. It wasn't bleeding much at all, but it still needed a bandage. Margali pushed him so he was lying on the bed, and went over to his cot. Birdy was next to his pillow.

"Here you go," she said, handing it to him and sitting on the bed, grabbing her gauze patches and cotton balls as she did.

Kurt let out a little puffy breath of relief and tucked Birdy in his arms securely. His eyes glowed slightly in the lamplight as he studied Margali's expression.

She tapped the new cut gently. "I suppose this one means something as well." Then, quickly as possible, she began dabbing antiseptic on it.

He winced and gasped. "You didn't tell me you were going to do that."

"It'd hurt more if you knew it was coming. Stop squirming, Kurt." She used her free hand to hold him down. "What does the cut mean?"

Kurt continued shifting around underneath her for a moment, and then settled down. "Jealousy," he sighed.

"What are you jealous of?" she asked. "Oh, wait. Who are you jealous of?"

He nuzzled the top of Birdy's head, which had become worn with love over the past few months. "Everyone else. Normal people don't get rocks thrown at them. They get to go to school and their mothers don't leave them all by themselves."

Finally, Margali heard the noise she had been waiting for: a sniffle.

She groaned. "Is that what you think?"

Kurt nodded, freeing one of his hands from his embrace and wiping his face with the back of it. "It's true, Margali. I see them all of the time, and even though they're staring at me or they're afraid, I can tell that they have happy lives."

Margali pressed the edge of the bandage on his stomach, and began smoothing it out over his skin. "Kurt, let me tell you something. Sit up." She gripped his shoulders and pulled him up. "Come on. Face me."

Kurt was silently crying against his teddy bear, still holding it tightly. His eyes were shut and he was facing straight ahead.

"All right. Don't. But you still have to listen to me." She screwed the cap back onto the antiseptic bottle. "There is not one normal person in this world. No one is perfect and no one has a perfect, normal life. No one looks the same, either. You're just as different as everyone else."

"Then why are people scared of me, if I'm different like them?"

"Not everyone's scared of you. I'm not. Amanda's not. Remember all of the people crowding around us today? They aren't scared of you, because they care about you. People who are just don't...they don't see the Kurt we know when they look at because they're not trying. And if they don't try, then they aren't worth your time to worry about."

Kurt opened his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes."

He mulled over what she had said for a moment, and then kissed the nose of his teddy bear. "Birdy likes me, too."

"She does. That's why I got her for you."

Kurt smiled waterily. "She likes you too."

"Oh, she does?"

"Mm-hmm." He looked at her. "She says you're nice. And she says you're her favorite woman in the whole wide world." He giggled, and held up Birdy so she covered his grinning, tear-streaked face. "Favorite, favorite, favorite."

"Is that what she says?" Margali asked, reaching over and tickling him. He laughed even more.

"Stop. Stop it," he managed to get out between his howls.

"No."

"Yes. Yes. Stop." He thrashed around, trying to escape. "Stop, Mama."

"No, not until...wait. Mama?" She stopped tickling him and sat up.

"Never mind. I'm going to bed." Kurt looked sad again, as he slid off of her mattress.

"No. Come here," she said, as she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back up. "You just called me Mama. I heard you."

Kurt shivered. "I'm sorry. It just slipped out." He patted his stomach, right over where he had made the cut. "I won't do it again."

Margali frowned. With his words came a rush of fear, exhilaration, joy, surprise, and, most noticeably, familiarity. This mix of feelings had come twice before; both times when she had found out she was pregnant with Stefan and Amanda. Sometimes it felt like she had been put on earth to be a mother. Even though she had two biological children, she mused, staring down at the boy tucked into a protective ball next to her, she now knew that she a had a third one.

"Kurt?" she asked, touching his shoulder. He looked up at her, squirming from a blend of sadness and embarrassment. "If- if you want me to be your mother-" Was that too formal a word? "-Then I will be."

Kurt's eyes suddenly filled with tears again, but he was smiling shyly. "Really?" He let his legs slip down from his body. Margali smiled down at him.

"Yes. I guess I'm adopting you."

He let that thought settle for a moment, before jumping onto her lap and hugging her tightly. She squeezed him back, letting him sob and laugh and choke on his words for the longest time, before they both fell asleep in their embrace. All too soon the morning came and woke them from their little rest, but with the streams of sunshine and the heaviness of dew hanging in the air came Stefan and Amanda, shouting and shoving and clamoring for attention, with Kurt snuggled between them.

My children, Margali thought, as she rose from the bed and stood up to her full height. My children.

A/N: Sorry this took so gotdang long, but I have A TON of stuff to do, plus the computer is needed for other stuff at my house. I'll try and do better, I promise!

A/N 2: But only if you review. (Just kidding, I really am not the blackmail type. But please, do feel free to review). : )


	22. Chapter 22: Confessions Part Two

A/N: Sorry the updates are so dang slow...my computer is being used to build a website. I'll do my best.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd have a lot more kids to babysit. More babysitting equals more money to buy makeup I don't need.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Confessions Part Two

Gwen tripped on the threshold in her effort to catch up to Sigfried, and, in turn, slid into the gravel of the driveway, causing a cloud of dust to puff up around her face and into her mouth and nose. "OW!" She began coughing. "Dad! Damn it! Get back here!" Wincing as the tiny rocks pressed into her knees and hands, she stood up.

Sigfried ignored her, and began running as best as he could to his car instead. "Why? What else haven't you told me?" he yelled over his shoulder.

Gwen inhaled sharply, twisted her body around briefly to see Kurt and Storm just arrive in the lobby's doorway, and started a mad dash after her father. "Dad! Come on!" She could feel her airways constricting in her panic: the onset of an asthma attack. She must have gotten more dust inside of her throat when she fell than she thought. Instinctively, she grabbed for her purse, which carried her inhaler, but then remembered that she had left it back in her room. She'd have to do her best to keep her breath.

When he reached the car, he fumbled around in his pockets for his keys. In that time, Gwen caught up with him. "Stop, Dad," she wheezed, clutching her chest. "We need...to...talk."

Sigfried didn't look up. "About what? My-" he sputtered, then sighed, smacking the door with his fist – "brother? Ray? You and this- this mind-reading thing?"

"It's...called...telepathy," Gwen managed, and felt her chest tightening even more. She doubled over, reached out blindly for something – anything – to support herself, then straightened in shock. "Ray? Who's...Ray?"

"Verdammt," Sigfried cursed, shaking his head. Finally he raised his head. "I didn't mean to say that. Yes. Ray." He cast his eyes downward. "It was short for Desiree. Desiree Noveau. Do not ask me where she is, because I do not know."

"Ray...Ray...Desi...

He suddenly jumped, as if just realizing what was happening to Gwen. "Where is your inhaler?"

"In bed...Ray..." Oh god, this was a bad one. Maybe the worst attack she'd ever had, thanks to a mixture of fear, frustration, and other natural elements. Lack of air was now staining the edges of her vision black, and before she could react, a heart-wrenchingly painful, yet welcomingly blissful darkness spread all across her body.

After Gwen ran out of the room after her father, Kurt took exactly six eternally long seconds to give a fleeting, fearful look at Raven, Caroline, and Ororo, memorizing their exact expressions at the moment, the tints of their flushed faces, the shapes of their mouths, the intense shades of their eyes – icy blue, deep brown, and midnight that flashed to yellow briefly before returning to their previous color, as if confirming everything that had just been said.

He hadn't realized it all week, but the ash blonde hair Caroline sported was streaked with gray. Not only that, but she had tiny wrinkles sprinkled across her face, along with bonier hands and legs. She wasn't that old, Kurt knew, but she was beginning to show how a lifetime of hardship and anger was taking over her body and mind from the inside out.

She noticed him staring at her, and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, he pushed himself out of his chair and walked out, making sure to gently brush his tail against Ororo's leg as he moved. He didn't know what he'd do after he caught up with Gwen, but he needed to get out of that room and make sure she'd be okay, no matter what.

In the hallway, Gwen was stomping and shrieking as loudly as possible, clearly hoping to get her father's attention, but he didn't show any sign that he could hear her. Instead, he rushed out of the open lobby and into the bright daylight outside. In that split second, Kurt felt a twinge of rage and wonder: that was his brother running away from his child.

Right then, he felt a hand sweep across his elbow. Forcing himself to strip his gaze from the sight before him, he turned and saw Ororo beside him.

"Kurt?" she asked, in barely a whisper.

Without a thought, he reached for her hand and pulled her with him as he chased after Gwen. Surprisingly, she didn't resist.

"How come you never said you knew Caroline?" she asked, hurrying alongside.

Kurt stopped in the lobby, just in time to see Gwen trip outside and fall into a cloud of dust. He glanced at her. "I- I couldn't," he told her, then made a move to go after his niece. Ororo stopped him.

"Don't," she instructed. "I've seen things like this before. It won't help."

"Will anything?"

She sighed quietly, averting her eyes from his gaze. "Probably not. No."

Kurt exhaled harshly. "But...she loves him."

"Sometimes..." Ororo began, and then stopped. After a brief pause, she tried again. "Sometimes that's not enough. Some children...get left all alone, and there's absolutely nothing that can prevent it." She peeked back up at him from beneath her lashes. "Nothing. No one deserves it, but it happens."

He turned away then, focusing as hard as possible on Gwen and Sigfried outside of their car, trying to ignore the awkward stinging in his nose that meant tears were seconds from gathering in his eyes. Ororo knew. She knew.

Gwen was doubled over, and her father was staring down at her as she frantically groped around for something solid to support her. It took Kurt a moment to realize that this was not normal. "Gott," he almost shouted. "What's wrong?"

Ororo gasped. "The dust! Doesn't she have asthma?"

As if she had heard her teacher, Gwen hit the ground at that moment and stopped moving.

Storm carried Gwen through the door of Hank's office as fast as she could manage, doing her best not to whack the girl's head on the frame. Behind them, Sigfried and Kurt were screaming at each other loudly.

As horribly as this day had been going so far, it had gotten even worse in the last ten minutes, and she began to wonder if anything would go right for this family that day. Listening to the two brothers yelling at each other in German, she seriously doubted it. For such a soft-spoken man, Kurt had an extremely impressive set of lungs.

Hank had been poring over a few manila folders on his desk when she arrived. He immediately stood up.

"What happened?" he asked, rushing over and holding his fingers to Gwen's pulse. "Asthma attack. Cyanosis. Her lips are turning blue. She shouldn't be unconcious, though." He looked up with worry. "She needs a bronchodilator, now. Get her into the infirmary."

Storm nodded, following him through the door. There was an empty bed against the opposite wall, and she dashed over to it. She settled Gwen onto the pillow and blankets, then winced and turned around as Hank pried open her mouth and pressed a large plastic tube down her throat.

Out in the basement hallway, the fight seemed to have gained momentum, and Storm seized on this to escape from the sight of the medical procedure. She ran outside to the two men.

Sigfried hadn't come down there willingly. Upstairs, when he had refused to follow them down to the infirmary, Kurt had simply grabbed him and pulled him along. To his credit, he had tried to break free, but his brother was too strong. He was still trying to free himself, shouting what sounded like insults, but it was useless. His words seemed to fire Kurt up, rather than beat him down.

"Excuse me," Storm said, with as much quiet force as she could muster. They didn't hear her though, or if they did, they ignored her. She tried again. "Stop that and listen," she told them more loudly. Again, no response. Finally, she went over and peeled them apart from each other. Suprised, as if just realizing what happened, they became silent.

"You're acting like idiots," Storm cried, glaring at them. "Gwen's almost near dead! This is not the time or the place to be doing this!"

"Was-" Kurt began, then corrected himself. "What is wrong with her?" His accent seemed more pronounced then usual.

Storm brushed her hair off her face and moaned. "I don't really know. Hank said cya-something, but-"

"Cyanosis!" Sigfried said, almost shouting in shock. "What's being done?"

"Hank – he's the doctor - has a tube down her throat. I don't know what it does, but I think he can help her."

"Will she be all right?"

"I don't know," Storm told him, hating the feel of the words in her mouth.

Sigfried, looking petrified, stood there for a moment, and then pushed past her into the infirmary. A few seconds later, though, she heard his horrified bellow, followed by his arrival at the doorway.

"What the hell kind of place is this?" he yelled. "And who – or what – is treating Sigfreda?"

**Later**

It was incredible, Kurt marveled as he set his beer down on the little table next to Gwen's bed, how much his niece had grown up in the past few years. Her face, once round and covered in freckles, had become longer and more oval, and only a very few lights specks were dusted across the bridge of her nose. But that wasn't all that had changed. Her hair, her clothes, the way she talked, the shape of her hands, the color of her skin...even the manner she walked with was so different. Sometimes it made his heart ache, looking at her.

As he mulled over this, it occurred to him that his brother had witnessed these changes every day of her life. With that thought, he sighed and rubbed his temples. How could Sigfried bear to leave her, when he had watched all of that?

Kurt leaned forward in his chair, folded his arms on the bed and buried his head in them. It had been an exhausting day. All he wanted to do was go to sleep, but he wouldn't let himself until Gwen woke up and he was positive that she was okay. Hank had said she'd be all right, but Kurt had decided to reject that theory until he saw it with his own eyes.

He stayed in that position for a few minutes until he heard someone open the door of the room. Starting, he sat up. It was Ororo. He gave her a little wave and went back to studying Gwen in his previous pose.

Ororo walked over and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Kurt."

"Hello." He reached over for his beer.

"You allowed to have that in here?"

"No." Kurt took a swig, challenging her with his eyes. She gave a small laugh and lifted herself up onto the bed, next to his head.

"She's going to be fine, Kurt," she informed him, patting his arm.

"I hope so," he murmured, shutting his eyes for a moment.

"She will be." Ororo moved her hand from his arm to his chin, tilting it upwards so he faced her. "Will you?"

"What do you mean?"

Ororo considered it for a brief time. "Raven...er...Mystique? She just left. She told me to tell you she's sorry."

Kurt snorted mirthlessly. "That's nice."

"Oh, come on, Kurt." She stroked the side of his cheek. "What happened?"

"Well..." he began, "a lot. Ororo, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Yelling at you earlier. You didn't deserve it. I was just frustrated and- and scared, I think." He pressed his face against the bed again. "It was Caroline. She's the one who gave me my black eye, and...everything else."

Ororo was frowning gently at him. He couldn't see her face, but he could hear it in her voice. "What did she do, Kurt?"

"She did this," he said, horrified by the shakiness in his words, keeping his face down as he pulled his coat up to reveal the scar on his forearm. "It's the only one, though."

"What does it mean?" she asked, holding his limb and prodding the raised mark.

"Pride," he said, feeling tears well up in his eyes, "for thinking that...I'm worth something." He felt her fingers close tightly around his wrist.

"Oh-" Ororo jumped, unable to finish.

"I was miserable, living with her," Kurt whispered. "She did everything she could to make sure of that. She hit me - or worse - whenever she was angry or happy, depending on whatever was going through her _sick _mind at the time. I remember the day Raven left- she burned my hand on the stove." He felt a tear run down his face. "Oh, sorry," he muttered, embarrassed, but Ororo swiped her thumb against his eye and rubbed it away.

"It's okay," she said in a low, comforting hum. Kurt took in a shuddering breath.

"I have no idea how Gwen figured all of this out," he told her, leaning in closer. "I never told her any of this."

Ororo straightened up suddenly. "Oh," she said awkwardly. "I do. But don't tell her I told you, all right?" Kurt nodded. "She said she read your memories a few years ago and she's known all of it for a while now."

A few more tears streamed out of his eyes, but Ororo swabbed them away. "She's always been good at lying," he choked out, laughing sadly.

"She's not going to be happy when she wakes up."

"I know." Kurt moaned softly. "I can't believe he left her."

"It's amazing how much you care about her," Ororo said, turning her head away to study Gwen.

"She's always been there," Kurt stated. "She's my niece, my sister, my friend-" he lowered his voice- "my daughter. I don't know what I'd do without her." He reached up and turned her face towards himself. "Thank you for everything today. I don't know what I'd do without you either." He clasped her hands in his own, and then, before he could lose his nerve, stood up and kissed her. To his relief, she didn't push him away, but instead pulled him closer.

They remained in their liplock until a younger voice interrupted.

"It's nice to know that you're all so worried, but I'm fine," Gwen announced. Kurt and Ororo jumped away guiltily.

"How long have you been awake?" Kurt asked loudly, feeling his face heat up. Ororo jumped off the bed.

"How long have you guys been doing that?" Gwen smirked.

"I asked first."

"I'm sick."

"So?"

"So I should get to know first."

"No, you don't."

Ororo interrupted. "We were just talking."

Gwen grinned maliciously. "I've talked with Logan before and nothing happened."

Kurt almost fell off his chair. "No. NO. He's older than you."

"He's hot. Hot beats out old any day." She sat up, wincing. "How long have I been out?"

"A few hours. You're going to be okay, though."

Gwen nodded. "I guess Dad's gone."

Ororo sighed. "Yes." Gwen looked downcast, but only for a moment.

"I found out my mom's name. Desiree Noveau, but Dad said she goes by Ray." She noticed the beer by her table, and grabbed it, taking a long drink. Kurt didn't even notice. Ororo did.

"Give me that," she said, holding out her hand. Gwen did, begrudgingly.

"It was the good kind, too."

"HOW do you know that?" Ororo glowered.

"Oh, daddy, daddy, why?" Gwen wailed suddenly.

"Fine," Ororo said, looking defeated.

Gwen grinned, a mixture of sadness and laughter. "Almost worth it."

A/N: Okay, change of plans. There are only TWO more chapters left. Ooohhh, I'm so excited!

And review. Melikes them reviews!


	23. Chapter 23: Future Love Paradise

A/N: Okay, people, this is the second to last chapter, and the last Kid Kurt chapter (sob). Heads up. I'm working on the prequel, and I'm pretty excited about it. And...yeah, I think that's it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd make the girl who played Kitty in the movie get a decent hair cut. What's her name? Oh yeah, Ellen Page.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Future Love Paradise

Germany, 1992

Where Kurt was sitting, the branches had parted just enough so that he had a perfect view of the stars and the sliver of moon in the sky. Sighing, he settled his back against the rough bark of the tree. It had taken him a bit longer than usual to climb it, but it was completely worth it. At midnight, everything seemed more simple, more beautiful. Even though he had seen it all before, it still amazed him.

Over the past five years, he had fallen totally in love with life. He had a family, friends, and full freedom to do anything and everything...freedom to be alive.

When he had first escaped from Caroline, the whole world was so terrifyingly daunting. He didn't have a moment's peace from feelings of fear or confusion, or a mixture of both. But as he grew up, they became less noticeable, until finally they disappeared altogether, leaving only hollow remnants. It reminded Kurt of a splinter: it hurt while it was in, but even when you removed it, there was still a slight gap where it had once been that still needed to heal by itself.

Sometimes it was hard to imagine that the gap would ever heal. Every now and then, he'd dream himself back to the house, or to Caroline's hard grasp, or even the hold of Raven's void "I love you," and wake up with tears streaming down his face. But when that happened (and it wasn't often now), he had the fusion of the sounds of Amanda's bleary sleep murmurs and Stefan's quiet snores to lull him back to sleep. The combination of sibling love and friendship they gave Kurt had shocked him at first, but he was happy and grateful for it, and he loved them back.

Margali had also surprised him, when she took him in and, for lack of a better word, adopted him. It was never made official, but he was her son, more or less. He had a lot of things, but it was their relationship that made Kurt feel wholly human. Even though she reminded him a bit of a tame dragon, she was always there to take care of him, to guide him, and to love him.

The circus where they worked was incredible, too. As far as anyone outside knew, his demonic appearance was just a costume, and he was free to roam around without cover. Over the years, he had learned how to perform acrobatic feats that left people gasping with wonder. It made him soar, literally and figuratively.

Religion was also extremely important to him. When he was eleven, he had nailed together pieces of metal to form a rosary, which he used often. Prayer, he felt, kept him grounded. Kurt believed that God had been the one to help him get away from Caroline that one night. He had tried a few times to move the same way, but try as he might, he couldn't take himself to that odd place he had once been. Eventually, he gave up and gave thanks that he had gotten away. It was all that really mattered.

Kurt sensed a grin spreading across his face at the recollection of those memories, and he shivered happily. He was wearing a t-shirt, and he rubbed his arms with his hands in an effort to warm himself up. As he moved, he touched the scars swirled across his skin, and his smile immediately dropped.

The marks were all over his body, now. If he had wanted to make another cut, there wouldn't be any room to do it in. He had told that to Margali, and she had smirked victoriously. "Good," she said. She couldn't stand what he was doing to himself, and although he knew that – and although it was extremely painful - he couldn't stop till he was finished.

Moaning quietly, he jabbed gently at the last scar he had given himself about half a year ago. It was on his ankle, next to a small burn he had gotten several years before. He could still feel it bubble as if the match was being reapplied to his skin, if he was angry enough. The scar itself stood for the sin of wrath.

Kurt brought his legs up close to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. At any moment, Margali would figure out that he wasn't in his bed and she'd call for him. It had been a few hours since he had left. He did that quite often, just to allow himself time to think. Climbing trees gave him a reminiscent feeling from some of the happier moments of his childhood. Margali knew that, and it made Kurt feel so unbelievably blessed that she did.

About fifteen minutes later, he realized that she usually called him in by that time, and decided to break with tradition and go back without his mother's screamed command. Kurt clambered down the first few branches, and then performed his favorite tumble back to the ground. He stuck the landing and, from force of habit, held the finishing pose for a second. Then, making his way across the dark grass as best as he could manage without any light, he walked back to his caravan.

Inside, he was surprised to find that Margali was still awake. She had lit and placed the kerosene lamp next to her bed and sat under her covers. She was reading, but Kurt didn't know what. The title was in Spanish, and he only spoke a little of that particular language. He stood in the doorway for a moment, waiting for her to talk. She didn't glance up.

"Hi, Mom," he said finally. She pursed her lips into a silent smile and looked up at him briefly, before going back to her book.

"You need a haircut."

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"I saw that, dear. Do it again and I'll snap the blue right off your face, I promise you." Her words were threatening, but her voice held a tone of amusement. Kurt wasn't remotely worried.

"You never called me in." He walked over to his bed and grabbed his nightclothes off his pillow, beginning, to pull his shirt off. Suddenly, he paused, and put it back on. "Don't look."

Margali snorted. "Why? Since when do you have anything worth hiding?" She lay down and placed her book over her face, though.

Kurt felt his face heat up very quickly. "Mom..." he groaned. She chuckled.

"I know, I know." She muttered something inaudible.

"What did you say?" Kurt finished changing. "I'm done."

Margali sat back up, grinning. "Nothing."

He chose not to pursue it. "You didn't call me in," he repeated, lying down on his stomach underneath his blankets so he could face her.

"I think you're capable of knowing when you need to come in." She marked her place in the book and stood up.

"What are you doing?"

"Tea. Do you want some?"

"No thank you."

"Alright." She walked over to him and kissed the top of his head, running her fingers through his hair. "Go to sleep, my little nightcrawler."

Kurt winced at the sound of his mother's pet name. "Mom..."

"I know." She laughed affectionately. "Nightcrawler's not your name." Again, Margali muttered something he couldn't hear.

"What? What?" he asked, sitting up straight.

"Nothing. Go to sleep, my nightcrawler."

Kurt growled quietly.

"Oh, what are you going to do? I'm your mother, I can call you anything I want."

"Yeah...goodnight, Mom."

"Goodnight."

Kurt's face was still warm from embarrassment, but he felt safe. Truth be told, he didn't really mind being a nightcrawler, so long as he was Margali's.

He fell asleep to the gentle vibrato of the noises and sounds of his family's odd love.

A/N: Yeah...so...that was it, dudes and dudettes. The final Kid Kurt piece...waah. Last chapter is coming up! I know it was short, but too bad, cuz I did that on purpose.

Remember to review! (Because I love you all so much).


	24. Chapter 24: Finale

A/N: Well, here it is, y'all. Last chapter! I can't believe it took me a whole year to write this...whoa.

Okay, if you want to read my prequel thingy for this, it should be out soon, school and other stuff I have to do permitting. I haven't thought of a name yet, so you might have to put me on author alert to catch it.

A/N 2: Yay! Oh, and review. Now yay!

A/N 3: Here are the chapter names/songs: Confessions Part 1 and 2 are songs by Usher (shut up); Arms Wide Open is by someone whose name I don't know; and Future Love Paradise is by Seal. This chapter title is up for interpretation.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did...it would be cool.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Finale

Gwen threw open her suitcase and laid it on her bed, her hand still smarting from catching it in the clasp moments before. She hated packing for a trip. Usually, she got hurt some way or another, and something always got left behind. Plus, there was the ever-present embarrassment of having people see how disorganized a person she really was.

Rogue and Jubilee sat on the bed next to hers, giggling as she went through her drawers and chucked her clothes into her bag (without folding them), screaming, "Dammit!" the entire time.

"You could help," Gwen yelled at them from the bathroom, picking up all of her spare lipsticks and eyeliners from the edge of the sink and flinging them into her purse. "Storm's gonna completely spaz if I miss the bus!"

"We know," Jubilee yelled back.

Gwen, having gathered all of her makeup, ran back into her room. Neither of her friends had moved an inch. She glared at them.

"This bus ride," she announced, picking up her hair brush from her desk and running it through her somewhat mangled hair, "is the next big step for me. And if you're just going to sit there-"

" '-and do nothing,' " Rogue interrupted, grinning, " 'you may be the reason why my life could never move forward,' " she finished for Gwen. "You've told us that every night for the past week, whenever you wanted someone to do something for you."

"Like turn on the TV," Jubilee told her, chuckling.

Gwen gave them the finger, and tossed her brush into her suitcase. She wished there was actual time to finish with her hair, but everything she had told her friends was true. If she was late and she missed her ride, Storm would get extremely annoyed. And, however overly dramatic she had made it seem, getting on that bus was the most important thing in the world to her right then.

**One week earlier**

A few days after her father had left, Hank had let her out of her infirmary bed, satisfied that she had recuperated. The first thing had done was leave several voice messages on her dad's machine, asking him to call her back so they could talk. After a few days, she realized they'd never be returned.

So instead of crying, which was what she really felt like doing, she had gone to Professor Xavier and demanded use of Cerebro so she could find Ray Noveau.

"I don't think you're strong enough to use it," he told her, when he finished telling Logan, who was in his office when Gwen burst in unnannounced; about "using his mutation with more responsibility," (surprised by her loud arrival, he had extracted his claws and almost cut off her arm before realizing who it was).

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Then you want to do it?"

He smiled gently. "Fine."

It didn't take him very long to find her. She lived in New York City, not very far from where they had picked up Caroline two weeks before. It shocked Gwen that they had been that close.

She wrote down her address on a small piece of paper, thanked the professor, apologized for ruining his meeting, smiled as best as she could at Logan, and darted quickly out into the hallway, barely making it to the end when she ran into Kurt.

"What's wrong?" he asked, taking one look at her face.

"Nothing," she replied, before bursting into tears.

He didn't say anything, much to her relief. Instead, he leaned down and hugged her tightly, muffling her sobs against his shirt.

"I hate him," she said, choking.

"No, you don't," he told her, gripping her tighter. Then, without warning, he teleported back to his room.

Once there, Gwen punched him half-heartedly. "Kurt! You know I hate that!"

"Yes, I know." He sat on the edge of his bed, taking her down with him. She started crying again, part sorrow, part relief of having found someone who cared that she was heartbroken and angry.

"He hates me," she moaned, burying her face further into his chest.

"No. He doesn't." He stroked the curls of her hair.

"Why'd he leave, then?" Gwen whispered. Kurt sighed.

"He was confused, and- and scared..." His voice trailed off. Then he spoke again. "I don't know. I'm sorry, but I don't."

"Raven was sorry," she told Kurt.

"So I've been told."

"It's true." She waited for his undoubtedly sarcastic response, but when she didn't get any, she sighed. "I probably should have told you that I was bringing her here."

He grunted. "Probably."

Gwen shuddered, still teary. "Sorry," she murmured. "And I'm the one who brought Caroline here, too. So sorry for that."

"It's okay. It's fine," he told her. Then, so softly Gwen wasn't sure if it was his thought or his actual voice: "Love you, Gwen."

"Love you too, Kurt," she muttered quietly.

They stayed in their embrace for a long time, until Kurt's door opened and Storm appeared.

Kurt sat up straighter and Gwen could practically hear him blush. He was so stupid around the woman; it was almost enough to make her laugh.

"Don't hurt yourself," she said in low voice, so only he could hear it. He ignored her.

"Hello, Ororo." Kurt pulled Gwen up. Storm came over to the bed and tapped her shoulder.

"Are you all right?" she asked kindly.

Gwen took her arms off of Kurt. "Fantastic. I'm fan-FREAKING-tastic." She wiped her face on her sleeve.

Storm patted her head. "You'll be fine." Gwen wrinkled her nose in distaste as she smoothed her curls.

"You screwed up my hair," she told her, but Storm had bent down to kiss Kurt and her complaint fell on deaf ears. "Hey! HEY! I'm RIGHT here!" she screamed, standing up indignantly.

They pulled away, and Storm sat down on the bed where Gwen had been.

"You can't help yourselves, can you?" Gwen glowered, sniffling slightly. Storm ignored her and leaned her head against Kurt's shoulder.

"The professor told me you went to see him earlier," she said. "So I went to find you." Pausing, she gave Gwen her warmest look, the one reserved for students having trouble getting used to their newfound mutations. "What's her name again?"

Gwen glanced down at her fist, suddenly remembering the address in her hand. "Here." She handed the piece of paper over to her teacher. Storm smoothed it out and read aloud: "Vandram Drive...this is in New York city."

"No way," Gwen said sarcastically.

Storm raised her eyebrows at her. "Are you going to let me finish?"

Gwen wrinkled her nose. "Yeah."

"Thank you. This is a two hour drive away."

"So?"

Closing her eyes, Storm waved her fingers in the air, calculating something. "I think if you went over to the bus station a few miles over you could make it over there in one ride, two at the most."

A moment passed. Then: "Two rides?"

**One week later, outside**

Kurt had been waiting with Ororo outside by her car for almost half an hour. "What's she doing?" he asked, not for the first time that day.

Ororo glanced down at her watch for the hundredth time. "Packing. She's going to miss the bus at this rate, though." She looked over at him. "I'm getting worried."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, I know what's happened. She forgot to set the alarm and overslept. She's all right."

"Okay." Ororo shrugged, and Kurt felt his heart skip happily. Leaning over, he tipped her face towards his and kissed her again. She laughed.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

Kurt thought for a moment. "Because I can." He draped her arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer.

"This is nice," Ororo sighed, after a moment.

"You have no idea," he told her. "Love you," he said more quietly.

"Love _you_." They remained in embrace until:

"GodDAMMIT!" someone shouted inside, accompanied by a crash and shouts.

"Gwen's ready," Kurt announced, pulling away.

A few moments later, his niece came running out of the lobby, tripping over her suitcase. Rogue and Jubilee followed.

"What happened?" Kurt asked, walking over and taking her bag. She groaned.

"I FELL." She threw her suitcase into the back of Storm's car. "And they laughed at me."

"Because it was funny!" Jubilee shrieked, still in hysterics.

Gwen straightened. "Bye for now," she said firmly, before running over to her friends and hugging them. They sobered up immediately.

"I'll be back before my birthday," she told them. "FYI, it's the twenty-sixth of July." She winked.

Gwen went over to Kurt. "Do you have everything?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Everything's in your suitcase?"

"Yesss..." Gwen muttered impatiently. "I got everything done. Went downstairs and said goodbye to Caroline." She made a boxing motion, grinning devilishly.

"She'd have killed you."

"Yeah, I know." Folding her arms, she frowned. "I don't know why she's even here."

"Because if she wasn't, she'd kill everyone else."

"Alright." Gwen jumped up and wrapped her arms around Kurt's neck. He lifted her up. "Bye bye. I'll call in a while."

"Okay." He hugged her back. "Be careful."

"I will." She lowered herself back down onto the ground and opened the front door of Ororo's car. "Bye, everyone!" She waved. "Hey, Storm, I was in detention for nothing all week, you realize that?"

Ororo smiled at Kurt. "I'll be back in a couple of hours," she said to him. To Gwen: "We're sorry about that."

"Can I donate my time toward another crime?"

Ororo put the key in the ignition. "It's not a crime, first of all. Second of all, what did you do, Gwen?"

"I borrowed your convertible a couple weeks ago without asking."

"What!" she almost screamed.

The car pulled away.

"Bye, Storm!" Gwen yelled from the back of the bus, waving through the window at her teacher. A man shushed her, and she glowered in his direction.

"Bye!" she screamed even louder, though it was at him. Sitting back down in her seat, she pulled out her CD player from her bag, strapped on the earphones, and pressed play. She had no idea what song was about to play (she hadn't looked at the CD itself), but it was alright.

Gwen heard the first few notes strum into her ears and without really registering what it was, she began singing along quietly, knowing every word and melody from past hearings.

To her surprise, no one stopped her.

The End


End file.
